Information Liberation By DANIEL AKST:
If your child has a life-threatening disease and you're desperate to read the latest research, you'll be dismayed to learn that you can't -- at least not without hugely expensive subscriptions to a bevy of specialized journals or access to a major research library. Your dismay might turn to anger when you realize that you paid for this research.
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I just watched Dear Leader tell his fellow citizens why we will have to wait until the next President before there is any hope for extricating the country from the quicksand of the Iraq Debacle. It was not a surprise, but no less dismaying for being expected. But I've been dismayed before.
Harakat Al-Shabab is a militant Islamic youth movement engaged in the Somali war. Yesterdaythey mortared the presidential palace in Omgadishu, setting off a fight killing 14 people.
Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.
- Richard David Bach
Citation Statistics (pdf):
"Alas, the new NIH policy will allow a 12-month lag between publication and posting on PubMed."
preposterous. how hard is it to cut and paste and upload? i guess i'm asking the wrong question.
hats off to PLoS! keep up the great work!
~C
@C4Chaos,
Yes, the 12 month delay is not ideal. However, even delayed access is better than no access at all !!
Here in the UK, it's a 6 month delay (maximum) and bar 1, all of the main funders of scientific/technical/medical MANDATE that the research must be made Open Access (OA).
In the UK, it is important to note that such research must be made OA NO LATER than 6 months.
The advantage of OA Journals such as PLoS is that all Papers are OA as soon as they are published. No messing around by these folks.
To provide a bit of balance (and please don't see this as me defending the evil empire)... Elsevier now has a patient research option so everyone can search Elsevier journals using ScienceDirect and then patients can order copies of articles for $4.95 each, which is just a handling fee. (researchers still have to pay the standard $35 or so) http://patient-research.elsevier.com/patientresearch/about