I've written a lot over the years about open access to science and scholarship. This bibliography of my writings on OA focuses less on news and more on commentary and analysis —that is, the pieces that may still be of interest. It includes newsletter essays, journal articles, preprints, and interviews. I omit the pure news pieces as well as minor pieces such as blog postings, listserv messages, letters to editors, PPT slides, and small web pages. I plan to keep it up to date.
Peter Suber
Most recent first
- Open access in 2008, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2009.
- Predictions for 2009, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, December 2, 2008.
- An open letter to the next President of the United States, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, November 2, 2008.
- Ellyssa Kroski, Interview with Peter Suber on Open Access. A 16:40 minute audio interview available in several formats, recorded on October 13, 2008.
- A bill to overturn the NIH policy, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, October 2, 2008.
- Cy Dillon, More Access, More Impact: Updates on the Open Access Movement from Peter Suber and Jonathan Band, Virginia Libraries, April/May/June 2008.
- Thinking about prestige, quality, and open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, September 2, 2008.
- Gratis and libre open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, August 2, 2008.
- E. Canessa and M. Zennaro (eds.), Science Dissemination using Open Access, Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, July 2008. (This book knits together pieces from many sources into a single narrative. Several of the pieces are mine.)
- Open access and the last-mile problem for knowledge, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, July 2, 2008.
- The opening of science and scholarship, an essay for the Publius Project of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, June 4, 2008.
- Open access and the self-correction of knowledge, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, June 2, 2008.
- "Open access", a radio interview by Jesse Brown for his show, Search Engine, on Canada's CBC Radio One, May 29, 2008. Now a podcast. The interview starts at minute 13:30 and lasts about seven minutes.
- What we don't know about open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, May 2, 2008.
- An open access mandate for the National Institutes of Health, Open Medicine, April 16, 2008. Also in PDF.
- Reid Cornwell, Perspective on Open-Access Publishing: An Interview with Peter Suber, Innovate, April/May 2008.
- Three principles for university open access policies, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, April 2, 2008.
- The open access mandate at Harvard, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, March 2, 2008.
- The mandates of January, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, February 2, 2008.
- Towards Open Access, The Earlhamite, Winter 2008. An interview with me by Jonathan Graham. (Not online.)
- An open access mandate for the NIH, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2008
- Open access in 2007, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2008
- A revised version of this article was published in the Journal of Electronic Publishing, Winter 2008.
- Update on the bill mandating OA at the NIH, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, December 2, 2007.
- Predictions for 2008, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, December 2, 2007.
- Victory in the Senate: Update on the bill to mandate open access at the NIH, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, November 2, 2007.
- Society publishers with open access journals (with Caroline Sutton), SPARC Open Access Newsletter, November 2, 2007.
- The Basement Interviews: Peter Suber, Open and Shut? October 19, 2007. An interview with me by Richard Poynder. The link points to the introduction; here's the full-text.
- Interview with Peter Suber on Open Access by Sundar Raman, for his show, Open Views, on radio KRUU FM. Taped on October 12, 2007, for later broadcast. A 60 minute podcast is available for downloading.
- Flipping a journal to open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, October 2, 2007.
- Will open access undermine peer review? SPARC Open Access Newsletter, September 2, 2007.
- An abridged version of this article was translated into Dutch by Karen van Godtsenhoven.
- Progress toward an OA mandate at the NIH, one more time, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, August 2, 2007.
- Problems and opportunities (blizzards and beauty), SPARC Open Access Newsletter, July 2, 2007.
- Translated into Spanish, Problemas y oportunidades (tormentas de nieve y bellos atardeceres), SEBBM (the journal of the Sociedad Española de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular), December 2007.
- Balancing author and publisher rights, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, June 2, 2007.
- Trends favoring open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, May 2, 2007.
- A revised version of this article was published in a special issue of CT Watch (Vol. 3, No. 3, Fall 2007) on The Coming Revolution in Scholarly Communications & Cyberinfrastructure.
- Paying for green open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, April 2, 2007.
- The Ides of February in Europe: The European Commission plan for open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, March 2, 2007.
- Twelve reminders about FRPAA, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, February 2, 2007.
- Open access in 2006, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2007.
- Creating an Intellectual Commons through Open Access, in Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom (eds.), Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice, MIT Press, 2006.
- This is a revised version of an article first presented at the Workshop on Scholarly Communication as a Commons, Bloomington, Indiana, April 1, 2004.
- Predictions for 2007, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, December 2, 2006.
- No-fee open-access journals, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, November 2, 2006.
- Unbinding knowledge: a proposal for providing open access to past research articles, starting with the most important, in Giandomenico Sica (ed.), Open Access, Open Problems, Milan: Polimetrica, October 20, 2006, pp. 43-58.
- This is a revised and expanded version of an article first published in SPARC Open Access Newsletter, June 2, 2004.
- Open access and quality, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, October 2, 2006.
- This article was reprinted in the DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Technology, January 2008.
- Nine questions for hybrid journal programs, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, September 2, 2006.
- Translated into French by Sandrine Avril and Catherine Gunet, Neuf questions pour les programmes de revues hybrides, Libre Accès à l'information scientifique & technique, September 22, 2006.
- Una introducción al acceso abierto, in Dominique Babini and Jorge Fraga (eds.), Edición electrónica, bibliotecas virtuales y portales para las ciencias sociales en América Latina y El Caribe, Buenos Aires: CLACSO, August 2006.
- This is a Spanish translation of my Open Access Overview (as it stood in c. Spring 2006).
- A conversation with Peter Suber about open access, a podcast interview by Jon Udell, InfoWorld, August 18, 2006.
- Ten lessons from the funding agency open access policies, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, August 2, 2006.
- Open Access in the United States, a chapter in Neil Jacobs (ed.), Open Access: Key strategic, technical and economic aspects, Chandos Publishing, 2006.
- An abridged version of this article, translated into German by Philipp Disselbeck ("Nationale außereuropäische Initiativen: Open Access in den USA"), was published in Barbara Malina (ed.), Open Access: Chancen und Herausforderungen - ein Handbuch, Deutschen UNESCO-Kommission, June 6, 2007, pp. 121-125.
- An abridged version updated as of September 2007 appeared in the English translation of the book above, Open Access Opportunities and Challenges: A Handbook, the German UNESCO Commission, July 2008, pp. 124-127.
- Open access mandates coming to the RCUK, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, July 2, 2006.
- Open access mandate coming to the NIH, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, July 2, 2006.
- Open access to electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), SPARC Open Access Newsletter, July 2, 2006.
- This article was reprinted in the DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Technology, January 2008.
- Public access to federally funded research: The Cornyn-Lieberman and CURES bills (with Ray English), College & Research Libraries News, June 2006.
- Good facts, bad predictions, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, June 2, 2006.
- Elsevier offers hybrid journals, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, June 2, 2006.
- Interview with Peter Suber, by Steve Shaddock, NeoAmericanist, Spring 2006.
- Another OA mandate: The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, May 2, 2006.
- Germany's DFG adopts an open access policy, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, April 2, 2006.
- Update on the NIH policy, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, March 2, 2006.
- Three gathering storms that could cause collateral damage for open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, March 2, 2006.
- Six things that researchers need to know about open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, February 2, 2006.
- This article was selected as an Editor's Pick in the March 2006 issue of Informed Librarian Online.
- Google AdSense ads for open-access journals, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, February 2, 2006.
- The U.S. CURES Act would mandate OA, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2006.
- Open Access in 2005, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2006.
- Predictions for 2006, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2006.
- Strengthening the NIH policy, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, December 2, 2005.
- Can search tame the wild web? Can open access help? SPARC Open Access Newsletter, December 2, 2005.
- The Open Content Alliance, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, November 2, 2005.
- Interview with Cara Kaufman, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, November 2, 2005.
- Open Access to Science in the Developing World (with Subbiah Arunachalam), World-Information City, October 17, 2005. (World-Information City is the print newspaper for the November 2005 meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis.)
- The Wellcome Trust OA mandate takes effect, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, October 2, 2005.
- Does Google Library violate copyright? SPARC Open Access Newsletter, October 2, 2005.
- An Elsevier journal experiments with free online access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, September 2, 2005.
- Reflections on 9/11, four years later, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, September 2, 2005.
- Update on first fruits of NIH policy, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, September 2, 2005.
- First fruits of the NIH public-access policy, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, August 2, 2005.
- The RCUK open-access policy now open for comment, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, July 2, 2005.
- Update on publisher policies on NIH-funded authors, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, July 2, 2005.
- Visibility beyond open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, July 2, 2005.
- Publisher policies on NIH-funded authors, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, June 2, 2005.
- What software do we need? SPARC Open Access Newsletter, June 2, 2005.
- Open access, impact, and demand: Why some authors self archive their articles, BMJ, May 14, 2005.
- If the BMJ edition is not accessible, here's an OA copy.
- Archived postprints should identify themselves, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, May 2, 2005.
- Trojan horse eprints, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, May 2, 2005.
- OA is not just a technical question about how to finance journals or launch repositories, Libre Accès à l'information scientifique & technique (from INIST-CNRS), April 20, 2005. Eric Goetmann and Marie-Catherine Gunet interviewed me on the state of OA today. The interview was in English but it's also available in French.
- Helping scholars and helping libraries, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, April 2, 2005.
- Translated into French by Marlène Delhaye, Aider chercheurs et bibliothèques, BiblioAcid, May 2005, pp. 17-20.
- Getting to 100%, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, April 2, 2005.
- The final version of the NIH public-access policy, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, March 2, 2005.
- Reflections on OA/TA coexistence, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, March 2, 2005.
- Comments on the weakening of the NIH public-access policy, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, February 2, 2005.
- How to facilitate Google crawling: Notes for open-access repository maintainers, January 27, 2005.
- Open access in 2004, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2005.
- Predictions for 2005, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2005.
- Google's gigantic library project, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2005.
- A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access, December 29, 2004. Originally written for a conference, it should print out on one page, depending on your choice of font.
- Congress approves the NIH plan, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, December 2, 2004.
- The UK government responds to the Gibson committee report, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, December 2, 2004.
- Journals: please post your access policies, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, November 2, 2004.
- Who should control access to research literature? SPARC Open Access Newsletter, November 2, 2004.
- A busy month of action on the NIH open-access plan, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, October 2, 2004.
- A glimpse of our history, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, October 2, 2004.
- A haiku introduction to open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, October 2, 2004.
- Public should have free access to research it funds, Tallahassee Democrat, September 21, 2004.
- This is an op-ed for the Knight Ridder Tribune papers. It also appeared in the Jewish World Review on September 23, 2004.
- Praising Progress, Preserving Precision, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, September 2, 2004.
- Reflections on September 11 three years later, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, September 2, 2004.
- Open Access, a breakthrough for science that every neuroscientist should know about (with Alexei Koudinov), Society for Neuroscience Abstracts online, Program No.30.6 (September 1, 2004).
- The open-access plan from the House Appropriations Committee, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, August 2, 2004.
- This essay evolved into my NIH Public-Access Policy: Frequently Asked Questions.
- The UK House of Commons report endorses open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, August 2, 2004.
- Elsevier's new postprint archiving policy, continued, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, July 2, 2004.
- Elsevier permits postprint archiving, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, June 2, 2004.
- 'It's the authors, stupid!', SPARC Open Access Newsletter, June 2, 2004.
- A revised an abridged version of this article was published as The Primacy of Authors in Achieving Open Access, Nature, June 10, 2004.
- A Primer on Open Access to Science and Scholarship, Against the Grain, 16, 3 (June 2004).
- Providing open access to past research articles, starting with the most important, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, June 2, 2004.
- An expanded version of this article appeared in Open Access, Open Problems from Polimetrica, October 2006. (See above.)
- The case for OAI in the age of Google, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, May 3, 2004.
- Two distractions, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, May 3, 2004.
- University actions against high journal prices, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, April 2, 2004.
- Reflections on the DC principles, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, April 2, 2004.
- Creating an Intellectual Commons through Open Access, a preprint based on an April 1, 2004, presentation at the Workshop on Scholarly Communication as a Commons, Bloomington, Indiana.
- A polished version of this article appeared in Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom (eds.), Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice, MIT Press, 2006. (See above.)
- Objection-reply: Whether the upfront payment model corrupts peer review at open-access journals, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, March 2, 2004.
- Top 10 priorities for the OAI community, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, March 2, 2004.
- The scaling argument, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, March 2, 2004.
- Predictions for 2004, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, February 2, 2004.
- Open access in the humanities, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, February 2, 2004.
- Promoting Open Access in the Humanities, a preprint based on a January 3, 2004, presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association in San Francisco.
- Published in Syllecta Classica, 16 (2005) 231-246.
- Translated into Italian by Francesca Di Donato, Promuovere l'"open access" nelle scienze umane, Bollettino Telematico di Filosofia Politica, September 15, 2005.
- Open access in 2003, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2004.
- Reprinted (slightly revised) as Open Access Builds Momentum, ARL Bimonthly Report 232, February 2004.
- The Promise of 'Open Access' Publishing," transcript of a live, online colloquy sponsored by the Chronicle of Higher Education, January 29, 2004. Lila Guterman was the host who moderated the discussion, and I was the guest who answered questions.
- The many-copy problem and the many-copy solution, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2004.
- Reprinted (slightly revised) under the same title in Open Access Now, March 15, 2004.
- What's the ullage of your library? SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2004.
- Open Access to Science and Scholarship, InfoPaper, an anthology produced for the December 2003 meeting of the U.N. World Summit on the Information Society.
- Objection-reply: Whether OA-promoting policies must 'wait until the infrastructure is ready', SPARC Open Access Newsletter, December 2, 2003.
- Open access when authors are paid, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, December 2, 2003.
- Advice to a student, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, December 2, 2003.
- Should trade embargoes apply to scholarship? SPARC Open Access Newsletter, November 2, 2003.
- Objection-reply: Do journal processing fees exclude the poor? SPARC Open Access Newsletter, November 2, 2003.
- Not Napster for science, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, October 2, 2003.
- The taxpayer argument for open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, September 4, 2003.
- How should we define 'open access'? SPARC Open Access Newsletter, August 4, 2003.
- Newsmaker Interview: Peter Suber, Publisher of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, by Andrew Albanese, Library Journal Academic Newswire, July 24, 2003.
- Martin Sabo's Public Access to Science Act, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, July 4, 2003.
- Saving the oodlehood and shebangity of the internet, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, July 4, 2003.
- Model Open-Access Policy for Foundation Research Grants, April 10, 2003. A hand-out for the meeting that produced the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing. A few revisions, each dated, have been added since the first edition.
- BOAI Discussion List Launched, D-Lib Magazine, April, 2003.
- Bibliography of Free Online Scholarship, The Infography, February 5, 2003.
- Removing the Barriers to Research: An Introduction to Open Access for Librarians, College & Research Libraries News, 64 (February 2003) pp. 92-94, 113.
- Measuring FOS progress, Part 1, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, September 15, 2002.
- Measuring FOS progress, Part 2, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, September 15, 2002.
- The right not to look, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, September 15, 2002.
- Two areas of law, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, September 15, 2002.
- The Free Online Scholarship Movement: An Interview with Peter Suber, by James L. Morrison, The Technology Source, September-October, 2002.
- Momentum for eprint archiving, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, August 8, 2002.
- Interview with Ingenta CEO Mark Rowse, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, August 8, 2002.
- Open Access to the Scientific Journal Literature, Journal of Biology, 1, 1 (June 2002) pp. 3f.
- More on the big koan: self-archiving, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, May 23, 2004.
- More on the big koan: open-access journals, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, May 23, 2004.
- Why FOS progress has been slow, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, May 15, 2002.
- Where Does The Free Online Scholarship Movement Stand Today? Cortex, 38, 2 (April 2002) pp. 261-64.
- Reprinted under the same title in the ARL Bimonthly Report, February 2002 (which came out in April).
- More on the problem of excessive accessibility, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, April 15, 2002.
- Thoughts on first and second-order scholarly judgments, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, April 8, 2002.
- Analogies and precedents for the FOS revolution, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, March 22, 2002.
- Noesis: Is it a library with built-in searching or a search engine with a built-in library? Syllabus Magazine, March 1, 2002.
- Copyright Law and Free Online Scholarship: Interview with Peter Suber, by Sam Vaknin, United Press International, February 19, 2002.
- Elsevier CEO on the Public Library of Science, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, February 6, 2002.
- Copyleft for science? Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, February 6, 2002.
- Thoughts on commercial use of FOS, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, January 30, 2002.
- More on cross-border censorship, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, January 23, 2002.
- Dissemination fees, access fees, and the double payment problem, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, January 1, 2002.
- Case study in freshman search syndrome, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, November 26, 2001.
- More thoughts on cross-border censorship, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, November 16, 2001.
- What will it profit you to gain [free online scholarship] and lose your very [connectivity]? Luke 9:25, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, October 19, 2001.
- Will FOS do harm? More harm than good? Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, October 12, 2001.
- Open societies and open scholarship, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, September 14, 2001.
- What do you think of author fees? Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, September 6, 2001.
- The Ellen Roche story, and Comments on the Ellen Roche Story, both in the Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, August 23, 2001.
- Commercial Exploitation of Free Online Scholarship, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, August 7, 2001.
- Adopting the lowest standard of protection for freedom of speech, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, July 3, 2001.
- When public laws are in the public domain, and when they are not, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, June 25, 2001.
- The Database Paradox: Unlimited Information and the False Blessing of 'Objectivity', Library Hi Tech, 10, 4 (1992) 51-57.
- A revised and expanded version of "How Teachers Teach, How Students Learn: Teaching in a Blizzard of Information," in Evan Farber (ed.), Teaching and Technology: The Impact of Unlimited Information Access on Classroom Teaching, Pierian Press, 1991, pp. 67-74, which is itself a revised and expanded version of "Teaching in a Blizzard of Information," Issues in Science and Technology, 5, 4 (July 1989) 29-31.
The following are (or were) continuously updated and can't easily be placed in the chronological order above.
- Open Access Overview
- Timeline of the Open Access Movement
- Lists related to the Open Access Movement (I'm phasing this out.)
- What you can do to promote open access
- The NIH Public-Access Policy: Frequently Asked Questions (I've phased this out.)
- Guide to the Open Access Movement (I've phased this out.)
Return to the Blog
Return to the Newsletter
Peter Suber
Open Access Project Director, Public Knowledge
Research Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College
Senior Researcher, SPARC
peters@earlham.edu
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.