On November 12 2001, IOPP and SISSA announced that the Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP), the most important and successful new toll-free-access (i.e., online-only, free full-text access) journal to date, will convert to subscription-based access at the end of 2002: http://www.iop.org/Physics/News/0346j
I think it might have been preferable for JHEP to try to hang in there for a few more years, as a toll-free-access journal, subsidized by SISSA and INFN, as it had been. This would give self-archiving more time to prepare the journal publication system as a whole for the transition to toll-free-access, by freeing access to more and more of the refereed literature in all disciplines (20,000+ journals), and allowing subscription cancellation pressure to grow. The growing annual windfall savings from the institutional cancellations would then become available to cover the essential costs up-front, per outgoing research paper, with access free, rather than per incoming journal, with access toll-based, as it is now. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm This preparatory process of distributed institutional and discplinary self-archiving, besides providing immediate toll-free-access, also puts graduated pressure on journals to downsize to the essentials (mainly peer review), for right now the access-tolls force-wrap into a subscription many "value-added" enhancements that users may not want or need (publisher's PDF, links, search, archiving). The competing availability of the no-frills self-archived version of the peer-reviewed papers from the author/institutions for free will make it clear whether there is still any market for these add-ons. And, obviously, any inessential features and services that can be dropped mean lower costs to cover after the transition. Stevan Harnad NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01): http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html or http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html You may join the list at the amsci site. Discussion can be posted to: [email protected]
