[Air-L] open-access is the future: boycott locked-down academic journals

[Gilles Frydman]

There is an amazing precedent in the field of mathematics publishing,  
demonstrating that if you build it, they will come!  On their own.

Look at the story of Grigori Perelman, who received the Fields Medal  
(the highest prize in mathematics) for solving the Poincare  
Conjecture. He published his solution to this 100 years old problem in  
3 articles over an 8-months period in 2002-2003. He specifically  
published the 3 articles  ONLY on arXiv, the open-access repository of  
e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative  
Biology and Statistics. (for background information on arXiv.org: http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~ginsparg/blurb/)

His experience has transformed completely how mathematicians think  
about peer-reviewed publications, creating a big push for open-access.

--
Gilles Frydman
ACOR.org


On Feb 8, 2008, at 4:23 PM, Christian Nelson wrote:

> That's A question, not the only one. As I noted before, if you build
> it, they will not come. Not unless you lure the big names away from
> the current journals, and that isn't going to happen on its own.
>
> On Feb 8, 2008, at 4:13 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>> The question is:  "Can we find sustainable models for the
>> publication and distribution of
>> academic content that are also consistent with the ideals of free
>> distribution and open access."
>>
>> I think the answer is not just yes, but a resounding yes.
>>