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