BMJ  2004;329:188 (24 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7459.188-a

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"Impending crisis" in journals provision requires radical solutions

BMJ

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has recommended that all UK higher education institutions establish electronic repositories where their published output can be stored and read, free of charge.

It has also recommended encouraging further experimentation with "author pays" publishing models as one radical long term solution to help improve access to scientific, technical, and medical journals.

The committee's report into scientific publishing says that a combination of high journal prices, inadequate library budgets, and ever increasing research output has led to an "impending crisis" in the United Kingdom, where academic libraries are struggling to purchase subscriptions to all the journals their readers need.

The report cites average increases in journal prices of 58% between 1998 and 2003. Dr Ian Gibson, chairman of the committee, said: "Publishers are feathering their nests with big profits while scientific journals are becoming less and less affordable."

The committee says the practice . . . [Full text of this article]

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