Dramatic Growth of Open Access: An Update

Please see the Revised Update. This original update continues to be available, as an illustration of an approach to Open Peer Review.

As further evidence of the Dramatic Growth of Open Access, here is an update on some of the figures presented in my peer-reviewed preprint, written early February 2005. In brief, there continues to be a dramatic increase in the numbers of fully open access, peer reviewed journals, articles in repositories and repositories per se as illustrated by OAIster numbers, and free articles in back issues of journals, as shown by the Highwire Free program.

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
Early February 2005:

over 1,400 journals

63 titles added in past 30 days (Feb. 9)

349 journal searchable at article level
August 19, 2005:

1,683 journals

43 titles added in the past 30 days Note: this is August - if the number of titles added is slightly less in August than in January, summer vacations are likely the reason

414 journals searchable at the article level

76,422 articles included in DOAJ service (no comparison figure for Feb.; included for future reference)
Note: journals are listed in DOAJ after they are discovered, and found to meet stringent criteria for open access and peer review. It is highly likely that DOAJ numbers underestimate the true number of open access journals, particularly independent start-ups.

OAIster records:

3.7 million records - Nov. 15, 2004

over 5 million records - early February, 2005

5.7 million records - August 18, 2005
OAIster institutions:

405 institutions - early February 2005

523 institutions - August 18, 2005

Free back issues from Highwire Press: not open access, but definitely related:

over 800,000 free full-text articles in January 2005

940,830 free full-text articles as of 8/18/05

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.