The days of journals behind paywalls is over

Peter Suber (ich arbeite gerade meine RSS-Feeds ab) weist auf einen interessanten tropenmedizinischen Fall hin (Copyright Battle Looms for Docs Who ‚Grew Up Google‘), wo es die bearbeitende – junge – Ärztin nicht verstehen konnte, dass die Bauern in Nicaragua keinen Zugriff auf ihren Forschungsbericht hatten. Die Google-Generation hat kein Verständnis mehr für Toll Access:

The [traditional subscription] pay-to-play model doesn’t jive with a generation of soon-to-be docs who „grew up Google,“ with information no farther than a search button away. It’s a generation that…doesn’t see why something as important as medical research should be locked behind the paywalls of private journals….

[Dr. C. Michael Gibson] says it’s only a matter of time before the generation that verbified „Google“ abandons the more traditional journal model. A cardiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, he didn’t grow up with the Internet but has embraced it. Four years ago, he literally borrowed a page from Wikipedia and started his own medical wiki, called WikiDoc. Like its progenitor, anyone can edit its pages. And because names are attached, Gibson says the whole process is a purer form of peer review. „In an era where information’s ubiquitous, the days of highly cloistered, secretive processes are just over.“ …