Free e-journals

Through 2008, journals published online by the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society will be available at no cost to HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) and other US minority-serving institutions with physics programs. Officers from the National Society of Black Physicists and the National Society of Hispanic Physicists initiated the agreement, which also includes discounted rates on electronic subscriptions to the journals in 2009.

“Many of the physics programs at HBCUs are at institutions with very limited library budgets that will not accommodate subscriptions to AIP or APS journals,” says Quinton Williams, chair of the physics department at Jackson State University and immediate past president of the NSBP. “This initiative with AIP and APS will open an otherwise closed door to the latest results in physics research to both faculty and student researchers.”

According to AIP’s Statistical Research Center, more than 60% of African Americans with physics bachelor’s degrees graduate from HBCUs, even though HBCUs account for only 4.5% of the institutions that award the degree.