This week, the NWO (the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Researched), reported that they are going to actively promote open access of scientific publications. They want all publications to be available for all public via the internet.
One of the arguments for this is that science on universities in Holland is funded with government support and therefore its results belong to the public.
On her weblog, Marie-José Klaver, comments on this great step towards total open access. She mentions a study by John Houghton on the costs and benefits of research. In this study its claimed that open access could gain society up to 37-133 million euro’s per year! Thats some great news, but i wonder how publishers will respond to this movement. How should they adjust their strategies?
In today’s edition of dutch paper NRC-next, some prominent Dutch researchers respond enthusiastic to the call up from the NWO for more open access. They said to publish their articles in open acces journals. Which is great news, as prominent researchers publish in these journals, its status will grow and young researchers will be more likely to publish in open journals too.
Some of the open access databases I know of and use often:
http://www.doaj.org
http://dspace.ou.nl/
What are your favorites?
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