Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 6, 2026
05:02
Comparing Bibliometric Analysis Using PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science Databases
Published on: October 24, 2019
Expanding access to published research: open access and self-archiving
Allyson Mower1, Mary E Youngkin
1University of Utah Eccles Health Sciences Library, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA. amower@lib.med.utah.edu
Summary
Academic libraries face a crisis due to rising journal subscription costs and shrinking budgets, limiting access to life science literature. Open access and self-archiving offer potential solutions to ensure continued scholarly information access.
Area of Science:
- Life Sciences
- Library and Information Science
Background:
- Academic libraries traditionally subscribe to life science journals.
- Increasing subscription costs and stagnant budgets reduce journal acquisitions.
- This leads to diminished access to scholarly literature for institutional members.
Discussion:
- The current model of journal access is unsustainable for many academic libraries.
- Escalating subscription fees outpace library funding.
- Reduced journal purchasing directly impacts researchers and students' access to vital information.
Key Insights:
- Open access publishing models can mitigate subscription cost barriers.
- Self-archiving (Green Open Access) allows authors to deposit copies of their work in repositories.
- These strategies promote wider dissemination and accessibility of life science research.
Outlook:
- Exploring alternative funding and access models is crucial for academic libraries.
- Promoting open access mandates and supporting institutional repositories are key.
- Ensuring equitable access to life science literature is vital for scientific advancement.
Related Concept Videos
01:40Archival Research
Some researchers gain access to large amounts of data without interacting with a single research participant. Instead, they use existing records to answer various research questions. This type of research approach is known as archival research. Archival research relies on looking at past records or data sets to look for interesting patterns or relationships. For example, a researcher might access the academic records of all individuals who enrolled in college within the past ten years and...
01:21Free Energy
Free energy—abbreviated as G for the scientist Gibbs who discovered it—is a measurement of useful energy that can be extracted from a reaction to do work. It is the energy in a chemical reaction that is available after entropy is accounted for. Reactions that take in energy are considered endergonic and reactions that release energy are exergonic. Plants carry out endergonic reactions by taking in sunlight and carbon dioxide to produce glucose and oxygen. Animals, in turn, break down the...
01:43Sustainable Development
As the human population continues to grow and use resources, we must be mindful of our planet’s natural limits. Sustainable development provides a pathway to maintain and improve human life now while also ensuring that future generations will have the resources that they need. The long-term success of sustainability efforts rests on understanding the interplay between human actions and ecological systems.
00:58Symbiosis
Symbiotic relationships are long-term, close interactions between individuals of different species that affect the distribution and abundance of those species. When a relationship is beneficial to both species, this is called mutualism. When the relationship is beneficial to one species but neither beneficial nor harmful to the other species, this is called commensalism. When one organism is harmed to benefit another, the relationship is known as parasitism. These types of relationships often...
01:24Biodiversity and Human Values
Human civilization relies on biodiversity in many ways. Sudden changes in species biodiversity result in environmental changes that can modify weather patterns and therefore human civilizations.
01:32The Scientific Method
The scientific method is a detailed, empirical problem-solving process used by biologists and other scientists. This iterative approach involves formulating a question based on observation, developing a testable potential explanation for the observation (called a hypothesis), making and testing predictions based on the hypothesis, and using the findings to create new hypotheses and predictions.Generally, predictions are tested using carefully-designed experiments. Based on the outcome of these...