On 19-Feb-07, at 9:07 AM, Peter Banks wrote:
Publishing, like
all industries, requires a far more sophisticated infrastructure and
a far
greater global reach than ever before, which means an ever greater
need for
capital that only larger companies can provide.
Au contraire - with modern computing technology, internet
connectivity, and software - it is not at all difficult for an
individual or small group of researchers to set up their own journal,
with little, or even no, capital.
Global reach is as simple as making one copy of your work open
access. From there, anyone in the world with a computer and internet
connection has access.
Today's laptop is more than enough computing power to run a journal.
The bandwidth requirements are a pittance compared to audio-visual
applications, or watching YouTube.
Free, open source software, such as Open Journal Systems is available
[disclosure: I work for SFU Library, one of the partners in the PKP
project which produces OJS]. The technically minded can look after
their own technology and hosting; or, there are services available at
very reasonable cost. SFU Library, for example, charges $750 Cdn per
year for a single journal, or $600 Cd per journal per year for more
than 10 journals.
For more on this topic, please see my blogpost, Scholarly
Publishing: High Quality at Low Cost:
http://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca//index.php/perj
NOT that open access requires any changes whatsoever to the
publishing industry, of course. As Stevan constantly - and correctly
- reminds us, researchers can publish in the journal of their choice,
and provide all that is needed for open access by self-archiving.
Heather Morrison, M.L.I.S.
Project Coordinator, BC Electronic Library Network
http://eln.bc.ca
&
Editor, Theory / Research
Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information
Practice and Research
http://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca//index.php/perj
Received on Tue Feb 20 2007 - 01:50:47 GMT