Princeton Joins the Open Access Movement

I read in yesterday's issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education that Princeton University has joined the ranks of institutions adopting a policy of free and open access to the scholarly output of its academics. You can read the article HERE.  In the article, faculty at Princeton were said to have "unanimously" endorsed the policy  on the basis that “the principle of open access is consistent with the fundamental purposes of scholarship.”

In adopting the policy Princeton has joined a growing number of highly respected US institutions such as Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that encourage or require researchers to make  copies of their articles publicly available, usually via institutional repositories.

In welcoming the news open access advocate and Librarian at the University of Kansas, Lorraine Haricombe, was quoted as saying: “This shows strong support for what universities do, and that is share their scholarship for the support of the cause and as a public good.”

With the current debate surrounding issues of copyright for scholarly works, including requirements for the payment of licenses by universities such as UWI for use of scholarly articles, one wonders about the  implications of the open access movement for the futures of such arrangements.