An editorial this week by the Crimson Staff headlined: Let’s welcome the end of for-profit academic publishing. The Crimson also reports what is happening in an article: Profs Might Make Their Articles Free.
The editorial is an excellent explanation and advocacy of the open future of academic publishing, and continues beyond these opening paragraphs with comments on the effect on peer review and its hope that other institutions will follow suit:
It seems that the for-profit academic publishing industry�s days are numbered. The model it was built on depended on the necessity of ink and paper for its viability. But today, the Internet has made the exchange and storage of information and ideas so cheap, that taxing the free marketplace of ideas and knowledge that academia is founded upon no longer makes economic sense.
Enter the open access movement, which is slowly marching its way across academia. The open access movement seeks to displace the expensive, subscription-only elite journals that have long held a stranglehold on academic papers by publishing scholarly works online for free or at very low cost. Currently, the cost of subscribing to traditional scholarly journals is prohibitive for individuals and organizations (such as nonprofits) that would appreciate and benefit from access to articles the forefront of research and academia. . . .
Via Joho the Blog
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