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Ask HN: Why aren't scientific journals free on the web?

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Re: Ask HN: Why aren't scientific journals free on the web?

#3
Physics and optics journals that you can read without any subscription:

arXiv.org An archive of e-prints maintained by the Cornell University Library.

Optics Express The open-access journal of the Optical Society of America

New Journal of Physics The open-access journal for physics.

Journal of the European Optical Society – Rapid Publications

At the same time there is a new trend in many journals nowadays to give to the authors the options to pay so as to have their articles available free of charge

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't scientific journals free on the web?

#7

Their purpose is to make money: they are not there for the sake of helping spread research (although it is an "useful byproduct").

That isn't necessarily true- for example, look into the phenomenon of open-access journals. There are also plenty of non-profit journals that act primarily to spread information, and as peer-reviewed gateways.

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't scientific journals free on the web?

#8

Their purpose is to make money: they are not there for the sake of helping spread research (although it is an "useful byproduct").

I am not sure that is true. If it is true, then they are committing tax fraud since nearly every journal is published by a non-profit foundation or organization.

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't scientific journals free on the web?

#9
post #6

Because they are a business, and they need the money to survive. As far as I know, advertising isn't common in scientific journals. You can usually read them for free in most universities, since they are subscribed.

Instead of advertising, many make up for their costs through endowments and charging an author to publish.

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't scientific journals free on the web?

#10
My understanding is that the problem with making scientific journals freely available is usually one of reputation. Reputable journals need strong peer review and editing, which isn't always free. Further, until a journal is reputable, few people want to publish in it.

In the US, all works funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) are required to be made freely available to the public within one (?) year of publication. Given, that's only valid for the field of medicine, but there's been a push for all academic work funded bu the government to get similar treatment.

Extremely relevant - Ars Technica wrote an article on moving to open-access a few days ago. Open access is a movement in academia similar to open source in software, and is becoming more popular in fields like math and computer science.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/the-economic-cas...

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