Purpose
Because of digitization and the Internet, the traditional system of scholarly communication is undergoing a profound change.

This pathfinder website provides information about the Open Access Initiative and the crisis in scholarly communications. It provides essential links to websites containing information about Open Access: what it is, how it works, it's history, related initiatives, supporting organizations, advocacy groups, open archives information, open access journals, technical resources, financial considerations, listservs, discussion groups, published articles, and newsletters.

Congress is considering passing a proposal requiring all research funded by federal dollars to be published in open assess journals. The House Appropriations Committee has recommended that National Institute of Health implement a policy of free public access to research articles that result from NIH-funded research. This proposal supports the fundamental principle that the public should have open access to taxpayer-funded research. Under this proposal, the text of the final peer-reviewed version of an author's article would be made available in PubMed Central, an open access journal, six months after its publication in a scientific journal. Articles with publication charges supported by NIH would be made available immediately.

Audience
If your library is experiencing the "serial pricing crisis," and today most libraries are, this website will be of interest to you. Does your library need to make information available to faculty, students, and administrators about open access publishing as part of the solution to the crisis in library funding? This pathfinder is designed to assist you in gathering information to increase awareness of the Open Access Initiative and its support of the open access publishing of peer-referred scholarly communication.

• Researchers in science, technology, and medicine
• University faculty in humanities, social sciences, education, and business
• Library administrators
• Reference librarians
• Acquistions librarians
• Graduate students

Real-life libraries

This pathfinder provides the information for researchers at NASA-Ames Research Center to comply with federal law regarding publishing their research. The administrators and librarians at NASA-Ames Research Center Technical Library will also find this pathfinder useful.

Researchers and librarians at Stanford University are also a potential audience.
Since this site is freely available on the web, it is available to any library or research institution.