学术期刊面临彻底改变 好书来了!

Science and technology.

科技。

Scientific publishing

科技出版业

Brought to book

好书来了

Academic journals face a radical shake-up

学术期刊面临彻底改变

IF THERE is any endeavour whose fruits should be freely available, that endeavour is surely publicly financed science. Morally, taxpayers who wish to should be able to read about it without further expense. And science advances through cross-fertilisation between projects. Barriers to that exchange slow it down.

如果有人试图把成果免费公开的话，那他一定是科学资助者，确实，纳税人都希望不再花额外的钱来阅读科学著作，并且科学的进步也是通过各个学科之间的相互促进吸收，而其间的交流障碍使这种进步慢了下来。

There is a widespread feeling that the journal publishers who have mediated this exchange for the past century or more are becoming an impediment to it. One of the latest converts is the British government. On July 16th it announced that, from 2013, the results of taxpayer-financed research would be available, free and online, for anyone to read and redistribute.

在过去一个世纪，期刊出版商给人广泛的感觉就是他们调停了这种交流，甚至阻碍了这种交流。而最新的改变发生在英国政府身上，它在7月16宣布，从2013年开始，由纳税人资助的科研成果都会在网上免费公开，并且任何人都可以阅读和转发。

Britain's government is not alone. On July 17th the European Union followed suit. It proposes making research paid for by its next scientific-spending round-which runs from 2014 to 2020, and will hand out about