Few people would object to the idea that the results of publicly-funded scientific research should be freely available to everyone and that funders should not have to pay again to view the published results of the research they have supported. Add to this the notion that scientific publishing is largely controlled by relatively few publishing companies who seem to make generous profits, and you have the nub of the case for open access publishing. Essentially the argument is that instead of having to pay for access to published material it should be freely available to anyone who wishes to access it. As an ideal, few would disagree with this but, as always, the devil is in the detail: publication costs money, curation of collections of publications, in whatever format, requires resources, hence money. Who is going to pay?
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