Ok I promise this will not be antire blog devoted to Open Access. For one my knowledge of Open Access is limited compared to the experts out there. Second there is already an excellent blog devoted entirely to the subject, Open Access Forum. So why re-invent the wheel when they pretty much have the whole car assembled on Open Access.

Anyway, there are two very good things that came accross my email today in regards to open access that I feel deserve mention.

1. There was a press release at BioMed Central that Open Access journals are proven high quality research that can compete and compare well with subscription based journal titles. Here is the lead paragraph from BMC:

"Open Access journals published by BioMed Central have received impact factors that compare well with equivalent subscription titles, it was announced today. The high impact factors, all for journals that are just a few years old, prove that Open Access to research literature achieves impact fast and makes quality articles much more widely visible."

2. There is a new brochure from SPARC introducing Open Access. SPARC (Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has created a brochure that "introduces open access to scientific and scholarly research. As with Create Change, the Open Access brochure’s colorful design helps librarians reach out to faculty and academic researchers so they understand an increasingly popular strategy for advancing scholarly communication in the Internet age."

So two new things in the Open Access world and I felt it necessary to post about them. Technology has changed the publishing world vastly. It was not all that long ago that the printing press revolutionized publishing, now the internet is doing the same.