Friends: Suhail has decided not to submit any paper to any OA journal, because they "are just as extremely commercial and just as obscenely priced." Suhail is annoyed with PLoS and BMC journals because they charge author fees and many authors in poor countries cannot afford author fees. But then they are not the only open access journals in the world. I welcome him and his colleagues to publish in the journals published by the Indian Academy of Sciences, bangalore, India. No author fees and fully open access. There are many other open access journals which do not charge an author fee.
Also, Suhail and colleagues can deposit their published conventional journal papers in interoperable institutional archives or central archives such as arXive. I do not see any reason for being frustrated or dejected. And the solution offered - increasing library budgets so they can subscribe to a larger number of journals - is neither the optimal solution nor can it really solve the problem. I am trying hard to spread the culture of open access in India and I am glad to say that the response so far is good. All of us in the developing world want two things: our papers should be read widely and be visible; we should be able to read everyone else's paper without a toll barrier. Both are possible through open access. Setting up interoperable institutional archives for one's conventional journal publications and publishing one's papers in open access journals, many of which do not ask for an author fee, should satisfy Suhail's needs. Arun
