Journals’ Online Access Costs Are a Shared Burden
DOI: 10.1063/1.1496355
I would like to suggest that the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society consider adding their journals to the list of prestigious publications whose contents more than six months old are available online for free (see, for example, http://www.highwire.org/lists/freeart.dtl ). Some of us have access to AIP and APS publications, but many do not because of the cost.
In my opinion, this free online access would not cause a drop in journal subscriptions. Those of us who publish in AIP and APS journals need current issues, so we will not cancel our subscriptions if we have free access to older issues.
I have great difficulty gaining access to nonphysics journals; scientists in other disciplines have similar problems accessing physics journals. Free access to scientific publications encourages cross-disciplinary research, but commercial publishers will not be the ones who take the first step.
More about the authors
Joaquim Fort, (joaquim.fort@udg.es) University of Girona, Catalonia, Spain .
