In response to Albert Henderson, let me stress the following points: 1. The trend I was referring to was the growing support of a growing number of various granting agencies for financial support for the OA business plan as exemplified by BioMed Central and by PLos;
2. If we look at the growing number of open access journals and the growing number of open access repositories, including OAI compliant personal pages, and if we look at OA harvesters, I would say that movement is still a minority movement but that it is growing well and even fast. I would add that the growing frustration of a number of academics with the behaviour of various publishing houses is leading to an interesting revolt. The latter does not always coincide with open access, at least not yet, but it certainly gets one step closer; 3. The OA movement may be commercial, but it does not have to be. Comparing it to a dot.com is inaccurate at best; 4. If there is one way to increase scientific productivity, it is with open access. Impact figures that begin to trickle in show much greater use of OA literature and, of course, OA literature allows much greater numbers of scientists to get involved in current debates, even in poor countries; 5. How one could ever conflate OA with "every researcher for himself" is beyond my understanding. OA involves a great deal of distribution, but it also rests on a great amount of coordination, standardization and interoperability. 6. Claiming some (obscure) link between OA and isolation from institutions is also very strange : universities themselves are setting up facilities to help faculty set up individual web sites... 7. If toll provide tools, we should also ask: can tools be financed in ways other than tolls and do we get the best tools with tolls. The answer is yes on both counts; 8. As for Albert Henderson's mantra about raising library budgets, the answer remains the same: of course, so long as it will not allow a number of publishers simply to increase their profit margin beyond the already obscene levels that have been repeatedly observed. Best, Jean-Claude Guédon -- Jean-Claude Guédon Professeur Littérature comparée, Université de Montréal Tél. : 1-514-343-6208 Fax : 1-514-343-2211
