Revolution in Scientific Publishing? Getting on with Open Access

Abstract

The Open Access (OA) concept has been formulated in couple of declarations in 2003 and 2004 as a tempting alternative to standard publication practice based on journal   subscription and copyright transfer to the publisher. The main advantage of the OA concept is immediate access to the published papers without the necessity of personal or institutional subscription to a particular journal. The concept assumes launching new scientific journals committed to open access and promoting deposition of published papers in electronic archives open to all scientists free of charge. The article compares the OA concept with the current practice and discusses some of its pros and cons.