What should Open Access mean?

May 8th, 2006

FQS 7(2) Jaan Valsiner: Open Access and its Social Context: New Colonialism in the Making? (Review Essay):
I have only read the abstract for this paper but am sufficently interested to have printedthe whole paper for weekend reading (curious that I still prefer reading on paper to on-screen for anything but shortish newspaper articles).
However I think there is a very important point made here. I fear that the so called open access movement for journals - which effectively switches who pays - but not the fundamental economic relations - is doing a disservice to the wider open content movement. Scientific content should be freely available and can be through electronic publishing.
Jean Valsiner says: “I claim that what is called “open access” is actually a transformed form of traditional (”closed”) access, and is “open” only by its obviously appealing label. As a re-organizational move of institutionalized kind, it benefits the economically powerful—usually “first world” based—research groups and corporations, and leads to new economic limits for the publication of innovative research emanating from less affluent researchers and laboratories. By shifting the costs of scientific publication from the recipients (journal subscribers) to the authors of published articles, “open access” creates a social scenario of one-sided information flow rather than a new form of “openness” in scholarly communication. By monopolizing the sources of scientific communication the “open access” initiative defeats its stated purpose.”

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