[Coral-List] Open Access

Paul Blanchon blanchon at mar.icmyl.unam.mx
Thu Apr 24 16:05:22 EDT 2008


Dear Richard (and list)

Reiterating Juan’s point, Springers ‘Open Access Policy' is clearly no 
such thing. If they released access or copyright to the journal 
archives, then that would be different. The problem as I see it is 
this: Given that tax-payers largely fund coral reef research, their 
money should be spent in the public interest, not to create 
intellectual property for the financial benefit of commercial 
publishers. It is true that they pay for copy editing, manuscript 
formatting, and publishing. But public access to the research they fund 
should not be held hostage to these secondary and presently overpriced 
expenses. In short, publishers have improper control over a public 
investment.

Saludos
Paul.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Paul BLANCHON  |  Investigador Cientifico
Reef Systems Unit (Pto. Morelos)
Inst. de Ciencias del Mar y Limnologia (ICML)
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM)
Ap. Postal 1152, CP 77500 Cancun,
Q. Roo, MEXICO

Tel. +52 (998) 87-10219 ext 47
Fax: +52 (998) 87-10138
Work E-mail: blanchon at icmyl.unam.mx
Home E-mail: blanchon_s at yahoo.com
Web: www.icmyl.unam.mx/arrecifes/-blanchon.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Equality in access to science is not only a social and
ethical requirement for human development, but also
a necessity for realizing the full potential of scientific
communities worldwide and for orienting scientific
progress towards meeting the needs of humankind"

Declaration on Science and the Use of Scientific Knowledge



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