5th Frankfurt Scientific Symposium
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While science claims to be universal, the notion of universality actually covers two very different facets: on the one hand, it refers to the universal value of the epistemological claims of science while, on the other hand, it addresses the issue of how fully the process of scientific communication is presently globalized. How the issue of open access crosses that of the globalization of scientific communication will be the theme of this presentation. The conclusion will be that, without open access, the globalization of scientific communication will lead to increased knowledge and digital divisions.
The economical and organizational debates about open access have mostly been concerned with journals. This is not surprising since the open access movement can be seen largely as a response to the serials crisis. Recently the open access debate has been extended to include access to government produced data in different forms. In this presentation I'll critically look at some economic and organizational issues pertaining to the open access provision of bibliographical data.
In keeping with the views of its guru, Stephen Harnard, the open access movement is only prepared to discuss the two models of the "green road" and the "golden road" as sole alternatives for the future of scientific publishing. The "golden road" is put forward as the royal road for solving the journals crisis. However, no one has drawn attention to the fact that the golden road represents a purely socialist solution to a free-market problem and thus continues the "samizdat" tradition of underground literature in the former Eastern bloc. The present paper reveals the alarmingly low level at which the open access movement intends to publish top-class results from science and research, and the low degree of professionalism with which they are satisfied.
