open digitial libraries - the open access way

In In DSpace, Ideas Are Forever NYT reports on institutional libraries (i.e. digital library repository) and the publishing practice.

"The Journal Backlash Institutional repositories are novel in that much of their content sidesteps academic publishers, which have come under attack from the so-called open-access movement. Some scholars complain that journals delay publication of research and limit the audience because of their soaring costs."

"Out of frustration with journals' limitations, some scientists have started their own archives."

Certainly there seems to be a momentum, rightfully so, against the bureaucratic delays in publishing research articles by publishers of journals and other research periodicals. It appears that the open access movement might be restructuring the publishing of research material in a fundamental way.

However, before any major change does happen, the issues of authority will have to be fundamentally changed in researchers’ perceptions. Whatever authority lies within the peer-reviewing process of a particular journal, will perhaps have to shift to individual universities or other non-for-profit institutions.