Researchers who want to make a big splash with their work might want to consider open-access publishing. [What's that?] Now, a new study in a journal called College and Research Libraries concludes that journal articles published under an open-access system are cited more frequently than those published through subscription-only services.
But will scholars get that message? Apparently not:
"[Scholars] want the imprimatur of quality and integrity that a peer-reviewed, high-impact title can offer, together with reasonable levels of publisher service. Above all, they want to narrowcast their ideas to a close community of like-minded researchers. . .", says a new study authored by Ian Rowlands, Dave Nicholas and Paul Huntingdon. Those three conducted an international survey of scholars and report that more than 80 per cent of researchers have not yet heard about open access publishing and, in any event, hardly any of them would be willing to pay the $500 (U.S.) or more it costs to have their work made available under an open access system
For now, it seems, the world's scholarly knowledge will remained locked up in ivory towers where it does little good to anyone but the academic priesthood.
Why else is open-access publishing important? Some say reform of scholarly publishing is vital because the current system is bankrupting university and research libraries. Some research libraries are paying what are literally millions of dollars a year in journal subscriptions. Many are finding that burden to be too high. Their choice is to either pass these costs on to students -- which raises the costs of education and makes a post-secondary education even more elitist -- or to cease subscribing to some of these subscriptions -- and that reduces the information or knowledge flow which, of course, is part of the core mission of most libraries.