Massimo Sandal of the University of Bologna writes in Nature Correspondence (454, 158; 2008):

Raghavendra Gadagkar (Nature 453, 450; 2008) argues that the open-access ‘pay to publish and read for free’ model leads to a disadvantage for scientists in developing countries. I disagree. Gadagkar correctly states: “page charges may be waived for authors who cannot afford to pay.” He then adds: “a model that depends on payment by authors can afford only a few such waivers.” This is not necessarily true: for example, some open-access journals provide discounts to particular institutions.

I would prefer to see what little money is available to a developing country spent on helping to publish their scientists’ papers rather than financing publishing houses based in First World countries. At present, open-access publication may be hard for those in the developing world to afford, but in the long run it will be advantageous, offering them free access to educational and academic resources.

Most important, the future of open access probably does not lie in journal publishing models. The huge success of online literature databases such as arXiv, free to publish and access, is significant. Such databases currently host mostly non-peer-reviewed preprints, and so are of little value for career building. But academic organizations throughout the world could, if they wished, build an equivalent archive of peer-reviewed papers.

I also disagree with Gadagkar’s view: “If I must choose between publishing or reading, I would choose to publish”. No one can expect to do serious science without access to the current academic literature.

Although many subscription journals are free to access online in developing countries through the HINARI, AGORA and OARE initiatives of the United Nations, the principle remains that if you cannot afford to read, you automatically cannot afford to publish. Perhaps Gadagkar will agree next time he is denied access to a fundamental paper for his research because his institution does not subscribe to it.

Nature Publishing Group announced this week that it will provide a free service to help authors fulfil funder and institutional mandates for the archiving of primary research papers. NPG has encouraged self-archiving since 2005. The new arrangements will provide uploading for NPG authors, starting later this year. See here for NPG’s press release announcing the service.

NPG will begin depositing authors’ accepted manuscripts with PubMed Central (PMC) and UK PubMed Central (UKPMC), meeting the requirements for authors funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), The Wellcome Trust, the UK Medical Research Council and a number of other major funders in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada that mandate deposition in either PMC or UKPMC. NPG hopes to extend the service to other archives and repositories in future.

“We are announcing our intention early in the process to solicit feedback from the community and to reassure authors that we will be providing this service,” said Steven Inchcoombe, Managing Director of NPG. “We believe this is a valuable service to authors, reducing their workload and making it simple and free to comply with mandates from their institution or funder.”

Initially, the service will be open to authors publishing original research articles in Nature, the Nature monthly journals that publish original research, and the clinical research section of Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine. NPG will then extend the service to society and academic journals in its portfolio that wish to participate.

For eligible authors who opt-in during the submission process, NPG will deposit the accepted version of the author’s manuscript on acceptance, setting a public release date of 6-months post-publication. There will be no charge to authors or funders for the service.

In 2005, NPG announced a self-archiving policy that encourages authors of research articles to self-archive the accepted version of their manuscript to PubMed Central or other appropriate funding body’s archive, their institution’s repositories and, if they wish, on their personal websites. In all cases, the manuscript can be made publicly accessible six months after publication. NPG’s policies are explained at our author and referees’ website.

In March, the British Library conducted a survey on researchers’ attitudes and needs in the digital age. Of the respondents, 93 per cent stated that access to online research material should be the same as for books. Most of the 320 respondents agreed that, in the age of the Internet, anyone involved in non-commercial research should be allowed, via ‘fair dealing’ or exemptions, to copy parts of electronically published works, including online articles, news broadcasts, film or sound recordings. ‘Fair dealing’ is the ‘right’ to make a copy from an in-copyright work without permission from, or remuneration to, the rights holder for non-commercial research, private study, criticism, review and news reporting. For example, most individual copying by researchers at university for academic purposes is done under the fair-dealing provision in UK law. Two-thirds (68 per cent) of the survey respondents are opposed to having different fair-dealing laws for material in paper or electronic format.

Further details of the survey are available at the British Library website.