OSI welcomes publisher participation in BOAI

From: Melissa Hagemann <mhagemann_at_sorosny.org>
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 14:57:33 +0100

OSI WELCOMES PUBLISHER PARTICIPATION IN BOAI

April 12, 2002

The Open Society Institute (OSI) has a long history of collaboration
with academic publishers and is looking for participation by publishers
in its latest major initiative, the Budapest Open Access Initiative
(BOAI). One of the two strategic paths identified in the BOAI provides
an opportunity for publishers to set up new electronic journals knowing
that the open access vision behind BOAI is shared by academic
communities across the globe.

As a major part of the Initiative, OSI is working with publishers,
business consultants, economists and librarians to develop model open
access journal business plans. To support existing open access
journals, OSI will provide funding for authors from over 65 developing
countries to have their articles published in these journals; more
details about the funding scheme will be announced soon.

There is a special opportunity in BOAI for learned society publishers.
A transition to open access publishing may be very beneficial to
smaller societies facing the struggle to maintain journals from which
they make insufficient money to move to electronic access. For larger
publishers also, the BOAI strategy offers a dramatic increase in
exposure for their journals and an opportunity to move away from an
economic model that relies upon library subscriptions. It is the
considered opinion of many in the publishing and library communities
that the current economic model is unsustainable. Academic
organisations and publishers must work together to prepare alternative
economic models if the scholarly publishing system is to emerge from
the deepening "serials crisis".

Behind this thinking in BOAI there is a realisation that publishers
contribute value to the access to research information. The academic
world would be far poorer without the contribution of publishers. OSI
wishes to work with publishers to retain their added value in new
economic models that are viable and allow open access.

For additional information on the BOAI, please contact Melissa
Hagemann, mhagemann_at_sorosny.org.
Received on Fri Apr 12 2002 - 14:58:24 BST