Science’s Pirate Queen
Here's one thing I don't understand about the call for open access.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.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.Because a relatively small specialist community actually consumes scientific literature, I don't see paid journals as some egregious societal inefficiency.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.