Open Access Publishing

Public Library of Science Goes Live: A bold and controversial experiment in academic publishing -- which may have ramifications in commercial publishing -- will go live on today:

The first of a proposed cluster of journals from the PLoS Biology, is launching...

Its arrival is already causing a stir: unlike other journals that record research about biology and medicine, this one is gratis. It charges contributors... Once your paper is accepted, you owe PLoS $1,500.

This is not the first to try so-called open-access publishing...but PLoS Biology is shooting for the big time. Promoted by an American television advertising campaign this summer, it aims to compete head-on with top-tier scientific journals such as Science, Nature and Cell. Unlike these, it does not charge readers for online access.

Original source: Nature

Comments elsewhere: LA Times (reg. req.): "Eric Merkel-Sobotta, director of corporate relations for Amsterdam-based Elsevier, the world's largest for-profit publisher of scientific journals, said: 'We don't think it's a sustainable business model'".

[via Rafat Ali - PaidContent.org]

What do you think?