Andrew Brown, wrote in the Guardian (5 Feb):

"[O]pen access is unsatisfactory [because] open-access journals [are] not yet widespread enough... The only answer I can think of is to bring electronic subscriptions into the library system."

There is another answer: Open Access (OA) does not mean only, or mainly, open-access journals ("Gold OA"). The other, more widespread way to provide OA is for the authors of articles published in non-OA journals to make them OA by depositing an electronic version in an OA Repository ("Green OA"), thereby making them free for all (including those whose libraries cannot afford a subscription) -- as 34 research funding councils worldwide (including all the UK Research Councils, the European Research Council and the US National Institutes of Health) as well as 31 Universities and Faculties (including Southampton, Glasgow and Stirling in the UK, and Harvard and Stanford in the US) have already adopted mandates requiring the authors they fund and employ to do.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum