Initiatives to Create Change

A full-text database of high-impact journals in the biological and ecological sciences, sponsored by the University of Kansas and its national partners. See Adrian Alexander and Marilu Goodyear, "Changing the Role of Research Libraries in Scholarly Communication", The Journal of Electronic Publishing, V. 5:3, March 2000.

"Open access to peer-reviewed journal literature is the goal. Self-archiving (I.) and a new generation of open-access journals (II.) are the ways to attain this goal. They are not only direct and effective means to this end, they are within the reach of scholars themselves, immediately, and need not wait on changes brought about by markets or legislation. While we endorse the two strategies just outlined, we also encourage experimentation with further ways to make the transition from the present methods of dissemination to open access. Flexibility, experimentation, and adaptation to local circumstances are the best ways to assure that progress in diverse settings will be rapid, secure, and long-lived."

A prize competition sponsored by the American Historical Association for the best history dissertations in fields where the traditional monograph has now become endangered.

"The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource."

A world-wide alliance of research institutions (including the University of Kansas), libraries, and other organizations that encourages competition in the scholarly communications market.

A proposal for a national electronic article repository for scholarly publications.