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-----Original Message----- From: Pierre Purseigle <[log in to unmask]> Dear colleagues, Many of you - in the UK at least - will be aware of the recent publication of the Finch Report on Open Access. The report's recommendations, and in particular its embrace of the so-called Gold route to Open Access (Gold OA), have been endorsed by the British Government. Research councils are currently working on their implementation across the research landscape in the UK. The imposition of Gold OA as the main mode of dissemination of research findings means that authors will be required to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) to publish their work. Many learned societies and professional organizations including the Royal Historical Society, the British Academy, and the American Historical Association, have expressed their serious reservations about the report. The radical changes it proposes would indeed have a dramatic and detrimental effect on the way science and scholarship is not only disseminated but produced. The implementation of the report's recommendations would affect and most certainly limit academic freedom and, in particular, the capacity of scientists and scholars to choose their publication outlets; they would streamline and homogenize publications at the expense of non-standard outputs like review articles, fora, opinion pieces and book reviews which contribute to the diversity and richness of scholarly and scientific debate. The level of APCs likely to be charged by generalist and prestigious journals would threaten the capacity of early-career, independent and retired scholars to contribute to academic debates. Colleagues working in developing countries (or even in affluent countries operating under a different funding structure) may be shut out of the global scientific conversation altogether. I do realize you may not have the time or the inclination to read this 140-page report and other relevant policy documents produced by the British Government. I have produced a fairly detailed response to the Report to inform the response of the International Society for First World War Studies. It is obviously too long to be pasted into an email so you can read it on my blog at http://www.pierrepurseigle.info/a-response-to-the-finch-report-on-open-acces s/ British historians are mobilizing to coordinate an effective and constructive response to this reform. I would urge you all to look into this, for it may affect many researchers within and outside the UK. Many thanks in advance! Dr Pierre Purseigle | Senior Lecturer in Modern History University of Birmingham | School of History and Cultures http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/pierrepurseigle