Price-fixing on the part of the publishing industry has made an impact on colleges and universities across the country.
Some professors and libraries complain about high costs of viewing research papers on threefold. First, publishers owning academic journals charge too much for its products. Second, that its practice of “bundling” journals forces libraries which wish to subscribe to a particular publication to buy it as part of a set that includes several others they may not want. And third, that it supports legislation such as the Research Works Act, a bill now before America's Congress that would forbid the government requiring that free access be given to taxpayer-funded research.
But despite the enthusiasm for publishing online, there are reasons for the continued dominance of traditional publishers. ArXiv's papers, though subject to merciless post-publication commentary, are not formally peer-reviewed before they are posted. Their quality is thus rather uneven. PLoS relies partly on donations, but also charges publication fees of up to $2,900 per paper. These must be paid by the authors, a significant expense for cash-strapped university departments. And there is also a lingering prejudice against electronic-only publishing. Web-based alternatives often seem less respectable than their dead-tree counterparts.
Oalib let users to view full text of research papers by clicking online without paying fees. Oalib offers high quality and most updated free academic thesis, open access resource covering various fields. It also provides Comprehensive Research Tool. www.oalib.com
Commercial publishers have begun to experiment with open-access ideas, such as charging authors for publication rather than readers for reading. But if the boycott continues to grow, things could become more urgent. After all, publishers need academics more than academics need publishers. And incumbents often look invulnerable until they suddenly fall. Beware, then, the Academic spring.
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