Thanks to Joseph for his (as always) eloquent and forceful message and his vote of confidence in Open Access. As a Budapest signatory, I completely share his views about both the values of Open Access and the barriers to the spread of knowledge represented by paywalls.
In fact, the article processing charge, or APC, used by many Open Access journals to finance their operations is another paywall, and also represents a barrier to the spread of knowledge. It may seem to be a paradox, but, while many authors in low- and middle-income countries can ask for waivers of APCs, this is not the case for authors in the richer countries. If, in addition, such authors happen to be working in a field where research funding is rarely available (for example, knowledge management, media and communications), and have no institutional budget to cover APCs, they are effectively muzzled. Open Access can represent a paywall barrier for the author.
A dilemma: of course, somebody has to pay for the production of academic journals. If it is not the readers or writers, perhaps this is a role for institutions of higher learning?
HIFA profile: Chris Zielinski: As a Visiting Fellow and Lecturer at the Centre for Global Health, University of Winchester, Chris leads the Partnerships in Health Information (Phi) programme, which supports knowledge development and brokers healthcare information exchanges of all kinds. He is the elected Vice President (and President-in-Waiting) of the World Association of Medical Editors. Chris has held senior positions in publishing and knowledge management with WHO in Brazzaville, Geneva, Cairo and New Delhi, with FAO in Rome, ILO in Geneva, and UNIDO in Vienna. He served on WHO's Ethical Review Committee, and was an originator of the African Health Observatory. He also spent three years in London as Chief Executive of the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society. Chris has been a director of the UK Copyright Licensing Agency, Educational Recording Agency, and International Association of Audiovisual Writers and Directors. He has served on the boards of several NGOs and ethics groupings (information and computer ethics and bioethics). chris AT chriszielinski.com. His publications are at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chris-Zielinski and https://winchester.academia.edu/ChrisZielinski/ and his blogs are http://ziggytheblue.wordrpress.com and https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ziggytheblue
