The open archives movement

Information Outlook, Oct, 2004 by Laura Gasaway

Over the past few years, the term "open archives" has been used to describe a movement orchestrated by librarians and researchers to ensure that scholarly literature is not locked up by commercial publishers. In response to the rapidly escalating prices, especially in scientific and technical journals, universities and other organizations have worked to make the works of their faculty authors available electronically, both on their campuses and in the wider scholarly community. Recent endorsement, by the United States, British, and Brazilian governments hold considerable promise that this new method of ensuring free or low cost access to making scholarly literature will succeed.

Based on the open software movement, open archives now have several manifestations. It all began in 1991 when Linus Torvald posted an e-mail message to a newsgroup inviting collaboration in developing a computer operating system. Thousands of programmers answered his call and Linux was the result--and it is still being developed. Not only commercially successful, Linux has spurred others to work on open-source projects ranging from open-source films to recipes and curricula to crime solving. The Internet now makes it possible to develop a wide range of open-access projects and to change the entire method in which research data and scholarly articles and papers are distributed.

The first of the publishing responses was the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), which was formed in late 2001. The purpose was to make research articles in all disciplines available on the Internet. At this writing (August 5, 2004), it had 3,676 signatures representing individual scholars and organizations such as universities, research laboratories, foundations, learned societies, and libraries. The initiative, described as both a statement of principles and a statement of commitment, also enjoys the support of other open-access initiatives around the world. (1) "The literature that should be freely accessible online is that which scholars give to the world without expectation of payment." (2)

Universities have begun to encourage their faculty authors to publish in open archive journals and to place the works in an institutional repository. Even before the advent of institutional repositories, some faculty authors posted copies of their articles on their own Web pages. For authors who retain their copyrights, this was no problem; but for those who transferred the copyright to a commercial or society publisher, it was problematic. Increasingly, however, society publishers have given faculty authors permission to post their articles a few months or a year after they appear in the journal. Institutional repositories offer a more systematic collection of articles, research papers, etc., than individual postings.

Assuming that the faculty member owns the copyright, placing the article in the archives ensures its continued availability. If the author transfers the copyright to a publisher, he should ensure that he retains the right to place the article in the repository. Some universities have established their own institutional repositories to ensure electronic availability of faculty-produced scholarly articles and other works on their own campuses and in the wider scholarly community. Other research institutions that have not yet created institutional repositories are considering doing so.

In the sciences, there are two publishing efforts that involve open archives: the Public Library of Science and PubMed Central. The Public Library of Science (PLoS) focuses on open access to scientific and medical literature around the world. It is a nonprofit organization of scientists who believe that open access will benefit scientific progress, education, and the public good. The project foresees the establishment of public libraries of science that will both archive and provide access to the content of scientific articles.

PLoS has assumed a publication role and has established a nonprofit publisher "operated by scientists, for the benefit of science and the public." The peer-reviewed articles are available immediately online, free of charge, with no redistribution or reuse restrictions. The first journal, PLoS Biology, began publication in 2003 and the second, PLoS Medicine, this year. (3)

PubMed Central is a source for free access to scientific articles; it is a digital archive of life sciences journal literature managed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Additionally, PubMed Central serves as a host for scientific publishers and organizations to archive, organize, and distribute their research articles at no cost to the user. The archiving of this material will guarantee availability to researchers in the future. The author or the society retains copyright for the individual items. Both peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed reports and articles are accepted, but the contents are clearly marked to indicate the peer-review status of an item.