“A study of open-access publishing — published last week in the open-access journal PLoS ONE — has found that the number of papers in freely accessible journals is growing at a steady 20% per year (M. Laakso et al. PLoS ONE 6, e20961; 2011). To many, the growth confirms the health of the free-access, author-pays model. But to a few it is a discouraging sign that open access is not about to take over the world of scholarly publishing.”
This is heartening, and I suppose 20 years is not enough to change a model that is 400 years old. Nonetheless, I saw one figure that 30% of all published science is freely available and open access. Not bad. Especially where there is some good stuff out there. PLoS has been kicking butt, and Nature and some other big groups are starting to step up as well. Let’s see how it goes!
