I sympathise with developing country authors who have to go through the process of asking for a dispensation of document management charges if they can't afford these. This doesn't feel like a level playing field.
But I fail to understand why some of the recent correspondents to this list are totally ignoring the BOAI-1 eprints archive route to OA. http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml As has been said many times already, let authors who cannot afford the charges of publishing in OA journals (BOAI-2) continue to publish in non-OA journals and at the same time archive their published papers in an eprint archive. This way their research is guaranteed maximum exposure and impact and it is achievable at almost nil cost. And in India, for example, the first eprints archives have been set up and a series of meetings are arranged in the sub-continent to raise awareness about the potential of this for Indian science and to show other institutes how to set up similar archives. http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3312.html http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/ Moreover, scientists in developing countries are even now distributing their papers through OA journals working with Bioline International http://www.bioline.org.br a non-profit Brazil/Canada service)- where NO charge is made for document management - and simultaneously archiving the papers in an OA-compliant eprints archive on bioline.utsc.utoronto.ca. The increase in numbers of refereed papers from some 27 journals published in the developing world, and now in this archive, is increasing rapidly and approaching 1000 already. The aim of BI is to transfer the document management technology to developing country publishers so that they too can set up their own institutional archives, if they wish. This route for authors from less developed nations offers a wonderful opportunity that is steadily becoming recognised as news gets around. The best of all worlds and a level playing field at last. Barbara Electronic Publishing Trust for Development www.epublishingtrust.org
