In this age of “publish or perish” culture in academia, having access to the conventional journals and the costs associated with their subscriptions and
the possible alternatives is making a sound debate across various platforms. Many a time, it is a hindrance to the growth/spread of knowledge when one
sees messages like “for access to the full text of the article, please login or subscribe.” Majority of the readers who are denied access to full text of the articles come mainly from developing countries where more and more people are getting involved in scientific research. A good example to illustrate this scenario is the research carried out in understanding the malarial parasite, Plasmodium. Though the initial discovery of the lifecycle of the malarial parasite happened in India, the country is struggling to access current breakthrough in the field owing to the raising prices of journal subscriptions. A similar scenario is observed among other developing countries as well as developed countries as the research budgets are shrinking. After all,academic science is mostly carried out by government aided research funds essentially making every citizen of the country a stake holder in the outcome. Unfortunately, not everyone interested in knowing the fate of their tax dollars has access to the results of this research work. One of the major impediments is that they may have to shed lot of money to get access to the journals in which the work is published. Now the question that a layman would like to ask the scientific community is “Is it fair?” Is this the only scenario where the stakeholder has to pay to know the result of his investment?
Author(s): Raviprasad Aduri