Science’s Pirate Queen
Here's one thing I don't understand about the call for open access.<p>Academic papers are not read by the general public because they are dense and usually very technical, accessible to researchers in that field but not really to many others.<p>Given this, the subtext to arguments for open access that journal fees are stifling scientific awareness or potential research by depriving the public seems incorrect.<p>Because a relatively small specialist community actually consumes scientific literature, I don't see paid journals as some egregious societal inefficiency.<p>Universities make so much money nowadays that it's certainly a travesty if researchers have to pay for access to these journals themselves, but the point remains that it just doesn't seem like that big of a deal that the public doesn't have free access to scientific journals.