Re: Open Access: No Benefit for Poor Scientists

["Maurice Long" <long@stm-assoc.org>]

Phil - I would like to comment on the following paragraph: "In 
the introduction to his widely-acclaimed book, "The Access 
Principle," John Willinsky describes the dire state of a medical 
library in Kenya with access to only 5 journals.  We are given 
the image of a faculty completely unable to conduct medical 
research and are left with feeling of moral outrage. It is not 
fair, something has to be done, and Open Access is the answer."

I read this posting yesterday morning, before leaving to visit 
the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology here 
in Nairobi, Kenya, meeting with the university deputy librarian 
and a plant pathology researcher. Both say access to AGORA and 
OARE, and even HINARI has made a huge difference to learning, 
teaching and research at the university.

On Tuesday I visited the Kenya Medical Research Institute also in 
Nairobi and met with an academic and a researcher whose work has 
been transformed over the last 2 or 3 years by access to HINARI. 
The young researcher is preparing her first paper for publication 
and relied very extensively on HINARI to do this.

Yesterday, we met a doctor in palliative care in a hospice 
attached to Nairobi's largest hospital. His research and clinical 
work have improved massively because of access to HINARI. He now 
finds himself consulted by other physicians, seeking advice in 
the latest advances in palliative medicine.

Together with colleagues from the publishing community and our 
key technical partner, I have met clinicians, researchers, 
academics, students and librarians on a visit to Kenya during 
which I also observed a skills training course, run as part of 
the HINARI, AGORA and OARE programmes, collectively now known as 
Research4Life. We are keen to see how these programmes are 
working in practice and the very real impact they are having.

The image described of a medical faculty unable to carry out 
research is outdated and does not reflect the reality where 4500 
institutions in 108 countries worldwide have access to a rich 
supply of primary research from 5000 health and 2000 
environmental, agricultural, and other related journals, books, 
databases, etc. In the majority of cases, this access is entirely 
free, in others at nominal cost. In Kenya alone by July 2008, 
more than 80 universities, research institutes, hospitals, and 
other public organizations had registered for entirely free 
access to HINARI. Of course, many institutions there and in the 
rest the developing world still suffer from very inadequate 
internet connection, computing, power and other infrastructure 
problems and there is a long way to go before the digital divide 
is fully bridged.

But I believe HINARI, AGORA, OARE are significant and successful 
steps forward and it just isn't true that medical libraries in 
Kenya are denied access to the journals they need.

Maurice Long
Internat. Assoc. of STM Publishers
Research4Life