National differences in librarians' reception to the open access movement: A comparison of the professional library literatures of China, Taiwan, and the United States

Abstract

AbstractThis poster describes an analysis of arguments supportive of, or critical of the Open Access (OA) movement expressed in a sample of the professional library literature from China, Taiwan and the United States during the 1998‐2005 time period. Scientific journals have played a central role in the accumulation and growth of scientific knowledge (Meadows, 1974); and the sharp rise in the price of scientific journals in recent years has led to numerous calls for publishing reform, including the development of the Open Access movement. This movement envisions a “world‐wide electronic distribution of the peer‐reviewed journal literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds.” Such system could “share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich”, so that “research and education in every part of the world are that much more free to flourish” (Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2002).