Access to Journals

Today I want to discuss the ability to access articles in peer-reviewed journals to stay up to date on current research in the geosciences. Regardless of your profession in the geosciences, it is a good idea to stay up to date with current research so that you are a well-informed scientist. A problem that I have recently found is that access to peer-reviewed journals can be difficult. If you work at a university or research institution, you likely have access to a wide array of journals because the institution bought subscriptions. Even at these institutions, it is unlikely they have access to every journal you may desire.

It is even harder for me to access articles in journals because of my situation. I am an unemployed geoscientist, or what I like to say, a freelance geologist. My passion is geology, and as I am looking for my next opportunity, I would like to stay updated on current research. Furthermore, I am in the process of writing two manuscripts based on my dissertation, and this requires me to read and cite many articles that are relevant to my research. Furthermore, it is even more important for me to stay up to date on current geoscience research because I am trying to follow my other passion by finding a teaching position at a college or university. I don't think I need to emphasize the need to teach students the most up to date material.

When I say I don't have access to articles in journals, I am not telling the truth 100%. I actually can get the articles, but they cost quite a bit of money for just one article. Looking through various journals that I often read (I won't name them) the price to read an article is $15. Even worse, that price means I only have access to that article for one day! As with most products, if you buy in "bulk", it is cheaper for the product. A yearly subscription for one of the journals is $500. That actually seems quite reasonable considering it is equivalent to $1.38 dollars/day. However, that is only for one journal and in order to do good research or stay up to date with research, you need access to multiple journals. As an unemployed geologist with a family (daughter born 2 and a half weeks ago!), I can't be spending that much money on articles.

All is not lost, in fact, there are open-access journals which are peer-reviewed journals that the public can access. I have been fortunate to find quite a few articles in these types of journals. Unfortunately, in the geosciences, most of the high-impact factor journals (ones that are cited a lot in other research) are not open access. A problem that can occur with the open-access journals is the cost of publication is normally put on the authors. Most of the time this is not a problem, however, for students who are trying to publish, this cost may keep students from publishing in that particular journal. Students who are looking to apply at mainly research institutions often want to publish their research in these high impact journals because it can be considered more prestigious. I would worry that discrimination would occur for students who can't afford to publish but whose research is still of great quality.

I am going to attach three (free!) articles on websites that I read regarding the issue of open access journals. In particular, I like the last website because it has pros and cons to questions regarding open access journals.

Open access: The true cost of science publishing

Open Access Should scientific articles be available online and free to the public?

Should all scientific research be made open access?

Even though I am having trouble reading articles that I find interesting, I refuse to give up in my pursuit of continuing my education in the field I love. I hope in the future that more journals in the geosciences move to an open-access environment. This is especially important for people like me who are unemployed or scientists that work at institutions that can't afford subscriptions to all the high impact journals but want to continue learning.