Chemistry and Open Access

My writings on open access and chemistry encompass four themes, so far. Here are links to my main writings on the topic, by theme.

Chemistry and the Public Interest http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2005/05/chemistry-and-public-interest.html
Open Access: Transformative Change. An Open Letter to the President and Members of the American Chemical Society

Chemistry, OA, and the economics of publishing

Imaginary Journal of High End Chemistry (this is more about publishing than about chemistry) http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2005/07/imaginary-journal-of-high-end.html

Chemistry, Open Access, and the Corporate Sector https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/1947.html

Funding ideas for open access chemistry

Two very simple and obvious efficiencies - decreasing the salaries of a very few top executives at the American Chemical Society - to merely much higher than average levels - and focusing on publishing, rather than lobbying, could release funding for about 15 - 40 average sized journals (with the total number depending on efficiency).
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/1974.html

Another tip for the ACS: sell the bars and real estate, put the money into an endowment fund for open access. (Thanks to Richard Poynder for pointing out the Information World article). https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/1993.html. Other interesting discussion about the business practices of the American Chemical Society can be found in the SPARC Open Access Forum / Open Access News, June 2005.

Chemistry as a discipline and OA

In a nutshell, different disciplines are at various stages of implementing open access. Among the hard sciences, physicists were self-archiving since the early '90's; some areas of physics, such as high-energy physics, have a 100% self-archiving rate. The rate for chemists is - er - rather closer to 0%, than 100%. Never mind, though, if the chemists are behind on the green route to OA. There is still plenty of room for leadership on the gold road!

Chemistry, Alchemy, and the Gold Road https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/1944.html

Note: The Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry, an open access, pure gold chemistry journal, was launched August 28, 2005. Thanks to SPARC Open Access Forum / BioMedCentral,

Chemists Without Borders? https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/1945.html

Note: there is a real Chemists Without Borders group, at http://chemistswithoutborders.blogspot.com/

OA and the discplinary differential http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0408/msg00069.html

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.