Open Access expands sharing

In the digital world, the ways in which scholars and researchers share and use scholarly material are changing rapidly, fundamentally and irreversibly. Faster and wider sharing of research material gives broader access to the needed resources. For example:

• Online open archives hosted by universities (called institutional repositories) and governments provide free access to articles, supplementary materials, supporting data, working papers, pre-prints, images, and more. They extend the options for disseminating scholarly work, serving as complements to traditional journals and monographs. For example, physics papers often first appear in preliminary form for community feedback in the arXiv.org physics repository. Subsequently, they appear in final form in a peer-reviewed journal and again in arXiv.org. Despite the free availability on arXiv.org, physics journals have continued to flourish.
• Open Access journals — whose costs are covered through publication fees, sponsorships, in-kind contributions, or other sources of support — are emerging as an alternative to the traditional subscription model. Almost 8000 open access journals in wide variety of fields are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.
• New kinds of works - such as wikis, open textbooks and annotated digitized primary source materials - are providing researchers and scholars with new options for sharing knowledge.

Open Access and economically priced journals recognize and preserve the important role of peer review in scholarly communication. E-book series are being developed by reputable presses using traditional editorial practices.

Open Access utilizes new technology, sustainable strategies, and legal mechanisms to facilitate the sharing of information that is so vital to the progress of scholarship.