Scientific Publishing: Breakthrough on "Open Access"

Five leading American universities have agreed to join their forces to embrace "open access" publishing. The institutions that issued the pledge for journals that are published online and free are: Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, MIT, and the University of California at Berkeley. The universities involved are inviting others to join them.

Interestingly, for example Stanford, Princeton, and Yale are not participating the efforts yet. Furthermore, it would be important for the cause that also the leading European and Asian universities will join the initiative. Who will be the first to announce this, that's the question.

Of course, the reactions from the industry of scientific publishers would be good to hear too.

Sources: Inside Higher Ed, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Library Journal.