學術期刊面臨徹底改變 好書來了!

Science and technology.

科技。

Scientific publishing

科技出版業

Brought to book

好書來了

Academic journals face a radical shake-up

學術期刊面臨徹底改變

IF THERE is any endeavour whose fruits should be freely available, that endeavour is surely publicly financed science. Morally, taxpayers who wish to should be able to read about it without further expense. And science advances through cross-fertilisation between projects. Barriers to that exchange slow it down.

如果有人試圖把成果免費公開的話，那他一定是科學資助者，確實，納稅人都希望不再花額外的錢來閱讀科學著作，並且科學的進步也是通過各個學科之間的相互促進吸收，而其間的交流障礙使這種進步慢了下來。

There is a widespread feeling that the journal publishers who have mediated this exchange for the past century or more are becoming an impediment to it. One of the latest converts is the British government. On July 16th it announced that, from 2013, the results of taxpayer-financed research would be available, free and online, for anyone to read and redistribute.

在過去一個世紀，期刊出版商給人廣泛的感覺就是他們調停了這種交流，甚至阻礙了這種交流。而最新的改變發生在英國政府身上，它在7月16宣佈，從2013年開始，由納稅人資助的科研成果都會在網上免費公開，並且任何人都可以閱讀和轉發。

Britain's government is not alone. On July 17th the European Union followed suit. It proposes making research paid for by its next scientific-spending round-which runs from 2014 to 2020, and will hand out about