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Scientific Publications: Free for all?

: That decision was for RCUK to take, but I have great concerns about it, not only because wanting to fund international repositories will end up increasing its costs and the cost of access, but because that will have a wider impact on the publishing industry. RCUK should have thought more carefully before taking that decision. As the Royal Society says:"““the worst case scenario is that funders could force a rapid change in practice which encourages the introduction of new journals, archives and repositories that cannot be sustained in the long-term but simultaneously forces the closure of existing peer-reviewed journals””." That is the nub of the argument; the problems that arise when people run hell for leather to the new system without any regard to the effect on the current system. As the chairman of CABI Publishing rightly said to me:"““for information to be freely available, it cannot be available for free””." Distributing knowledge will always cost money, and we must ask whether there is an overwhelming case for the Government to put more money into the distribution of knowledge. In my view, there is no case for the Government to do that.