Royal Society Fears Government-Sponsored Open Access to Publications

The science blog world has been abuzz ever since the Royal Academy, UK's national academy of science, released a statement on Nov. 24 regarding distribution of research results funded by the Research Councils UK (RC UK). Essentially, the RC UK proposes that effective October 1, 2005 "a copy of any published journal articles or conference proceedings resulting from Research Council funded research should be deposited in an appropriate e-print repository (either institutional or subject-based) wherever such a repository is available to the award-holder." Sounds reasonable, no? The Royal Society, however, is afraid that the new proposals will divert funds and readership away from their publications, namely the Philosophical Transactions, one of the world's oldest journals, and "has written to RC UK proposing that a study be commissioned to assess the relative merits of the various models that have been proposed under the rather broad banner of open access, including that outlined by RC UK in its consultation document" (read: delay tactic). Nevermind that such journals are rapidly being sidelined by online open access scientfic journals such as Public Library of Science and arXiv.org. If the Royal Society were savvy enough, they'd make their articles open over the web (i.e., be the repository) and include Google ads or the like on the webpages for revenue. Alas, they're behaving like another dinosaur, slow to adapt to a changing environment.