From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 10:42:27 +0100

The eighth Q&A in a series exploring the current state of Open Access has
been published. On this occasion the questions are answered by Peter Suber,
de facto leader of the OA movement.

Philosopher, jurist, and one-time stand-up comic, Peter Suber was one of
the small group of people invited by the Soros Foundation to the Budapest
Open Access Initiative (BOAI) meeting held in Hungary in 2001. It was in
Budapest that the term Open Access was coined, and a definition of OA
agreed.

And it was Suber who drafted that definition, doing so with words that
still stir, inspire, and motivate OA advocates everywhere.

It was also Suber who chose to make the biggest sacrifice for the cause. In
2003 he gave up his position as a tenured full professor to become a
full-time advocate for the movement, swapping secure employment for a
series of uncertain, short-term grants.

But Suber’s commitment and hard work for the OA cause has been rewarded. In
2003 he was named Senior Researcher for the Scholarly Publishing and
Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), in 2009 he received a joint
fellowship at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society,
and in 2011 he became Director of the Harvard Open Access Project. His
relationship with Harvard deepened this year when he was appointed the new
Director of Harvard’s Office of Scholarly Communication, replacing Stuart
Shieber, the architect of the Harvard OA mandates.

Suber is also the author of the definitive book on Open Access, which is
itself now available OA.

Who better then than Peter Suber to summarise the current state of Open
Access, outline what still needs to be done, and suggest what the
priorities should be?

The Q&A with Suber is available here:

http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/peter-suber-on-state-of-open-access.html


Richard Poynder