Is Open Access not just a utopian dream?

On the contrary – despite its as yet brief history, the Open Access movement has been very successful and is currently radically changing the face of the scientific publication market:

• Over 7000 Open Access journals already exist, and the number is growing each year.
• In the area of medical and life sciences in particular, Open Access publishers such as the Public Library of Science (PLoS) or BioMedCentral have firmly established themselves within just a few years.
• In the past year, numerous major publishers have launched their own Open Access journals, for instance Nature Publishing Group and American Physical Society.
• Most universities already have an institutional repository  (document server) on which researchers can store their publications with free-of-charge, public access.
• A deposit of papers is mandatory at an increasing number of universities, for instance University of Zurich, Harvard or MIT.
• Powerful search engines such as OAIster, Google Scholar or BASE ensure that this content can be found across the world; a document server search is already included in many metasearch interfaces such as swissbib and KVK.

You will find a series of frequently asked questions on the legal and financial aspects of Open Access and on quality control and reputation in this section.

Do you have a question that you can't find an answer to? Write to us and we will be happy to provide additional information.