From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:27:50 +0000

Like members of all movements, OA advocates come in all shapes and
sizes, and they are driven by a variety of different motives. Some
have embraced OA, for instance, because they see it as a good business
opportunity, some because they want their research to be more
accessible, and so have greater impact, some because they expect it
will save their institution large sums of money, and some simply
because they believe that OA holds out the promise of providing
considerable common good.

What is distinctive about the Open Accessmovement, however, is that it
is a leaderless revolution. There is no formal organisation or
foundation to represent it, and there is no official leader. For all
that, OA is generally associated with a small group of high-profile
Western-based individuals and organisations that are extremely vocal
in their support of OA, and who have shown themselves to be very
successful at attracting attention.

Since all movements have to promote themselves effectively this is
clearly a good thing. However, it does mean that the contribution of
the many “foot soldiers” of the movement can too easily be overlooked.
These are people who do not shout about their activities, but simply
go about the business of facilitating OA quietly and modestly.

And it is the foot soldiers based in the developing world that tend to
be least visible — people like Francis Jayakanth, a library-trained
scientific assistant based at the National Centre for Science
Information (NCSI)<http://www.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/>, the information
centre of the Indian Institute of Science
(IISc)<http://www.iisc.ernet.in/>in Bangalore.

More here: http://bit.ly/x7AJRH

Richard Poynder