Five leading science journals will receive funding to switch to an
online “open access” model, in a blow to traditional publishers.
The
Government-financed Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)
allocated a first round of funding last year, and is now expanding the
programme to include a £150,000 total grant to the New Journal of
Physics , Nucleic Acids Research , the Journal of Medical Genetics ,
the journals of the International Union of Crystallography, and the
Journal of Experimental Botany .
Libraries are increasingly
unable to afford subscriptions to journals, so under the new model, the
author (or funders) of the article pay for publication, which is then
free to all readers.
Reed Elsevier, one of the sector’s leading
traditional publishers, has dismissed the “open access” model as
commercially unviable and a threat to standards.
But Lorraine
Estelle, JISC collections team manager, said: “The first round of this
programme has been a significant success, giving us some much-needed
evidence of the potential of open access to stimulate research and to
make visible the outputs of researchers in the UK.
“We look forward to the further success of this programme.”
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