…but you can buy it for $39.99! Recently, a point was raised in the discussion forum when I posted a link to an article that was not open access. Should FORCE11 be posting links to articles that aren't open access? In truth, I didn't really think about it when I posted the article, as the content was important, and as I am at a major university, I do take access for granted. But nothing kills an active line of inquiry or a discussion faster than the words "Sorry, you don't have access to this article" and clearly, everyone in FORCE11 cannot take access to published content for granted. So what do we do? Do we restrict postings only to those things which can be viewed by everyone? Do we take the extra effort to summarize content for those who don't have access? Open access is a contentious issue among the broad community of FORCE11, which aims to bring together everyone involved in scholarly communication, including those who employ closed access as a business model. So we (by we, I mean the executive committee) decided that links to anything can be posted, but we will indicate clearly in the tagline that "Sorry, this article is unfortunately not open access so you may not be able to read it". Are we trying to make a point here? Maybe just a little.
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