Co-operation and Development(OECD)has just issued a report describing the far-reaching consequences of this. The report, by john Houghton of Victoria University in Australia and Graham Vickery of the OECD, makes heavy reading for publishers who have, so far, made handsome profits But it goes further than that. It signals a change in what has, until now, been a key element of scientific endeavor. The value of knowledge and the return on the public investment in research depends, in part, upon wide distribution and ready access. It is big business. In America, the core scientific publishing market is estimated at between $7 billion and $11 billion. The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers says that there are more than 2, 000 publishers worldwide specializing in these subjects. They publish more than 1. 2 million articles each year in some 16, 000 journals This is now changing. According to the OECD report, some 75%o of scholarly journals are now online. Entirely new business models are emerging: three main ones were identified by the report's authors. There is the so-called big deal, where institutional subscribers pay for access to a collection of online journal titles through site-licensing agreements There is open-access publishing, typically supported by asking the author Cor his employer)to pay for the paper to be published Finally there are open-access archives, where organizations such as universities orCo-operation and Development (OECD) has just issued a report describing the far-reaching consequences of this. The report, by John Houghton of Victoria University in Australia and Graham Vickery of the OECD, makes heavy reading for publishers who have, so far, made handsome profits. But it goes further than that. It signals a change in what has, until now, been a key element of scientific endeavor. The value of knowledge and the return on the public investment in research depends, in part, upon wide distribution and ready access. It is big business. In America, the core scientific publishing market is estimated at between $7 billion and $11 billion. The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers says that there are more than 2,000 publishers worldwide specializing in these subjects. They publish more than 1.2 million articles each year in some 16,000 journals. This is now changing. According to the OECD report, some 75% of scholarly journals are now online. Entirely new business models are emerging; three main ones were identified by the report’s authors. There is the so-called big deal, where institutional subscribers pay for access to a collection of online journal titles through site-licensing agreements. There is open-access publishing, typically supported by asking the author (or his employer) to pay for the paper to be published. Finally, there are open-access archives, where organizations such as universities or