Current Trends

The open access of academic literature is increasing, but slowly.

Of all articles published in 2008, 20.4% are available via OA, with 8.5% in OA journals and 11.9% in repositories or on websites (Björk et al., 2010). DOAJ reports that there are now over 5300 open access journals, likely more than 1/5 of all academic journals. There has also been a growing increase in the number of self-archiving mandates that exist, though there continues to be a need for greater emphasis on compliance. Clearly, big publishers see a future and profit in OA, as most now have a hybrid OA option. Springer’s acquisition of BioMed Central goes further to demonstrate this.

Björk, B., Roos, A. & Lauri, M. (2009). Scientific journal publishing: Yearly volume and open access availability. Information Research, 14(1). http://informationr.net/ir/14-1/paper391.html

Björk, B., Welling, P., Laakso, M., Majlender, Hedlund, T. & Guðnason, G. (2010). Open Access to the Scientific Journal Literature: Situation 2009. PLoS One. http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0011273

Poynder, R. (2009, 16 December). Open Access in 2009: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Open and Shut? http://poynder.blogspot.com/2009/12/open-access-in-2009-good-bad-and-ugly.html

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