Open sesame? Increasing access to medical literature.

Over the past few years there has been a growing concern within the world’s scientific communities about access to scientific, technical, and medical (STM) literature. This concern has given rise to a movement within scientific and medical circles known as the “open-access” movement. Over the last 12 months, this concern has leapt from the acid-free pages of the world’s STM journals to the newsprint of the mainstream media. Articles on the subject have appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among other prominent media sources.1–5 Many of these articles have painted open-access advocates as something akin to Ali Baba standing before the locked portal of a cave in which the highwaymen of publishing have stashed the plundered treasure of the scientific world.6 All one needs to do is chant the magic words and the portal will open wide. Although this makes for dramatic storytelling, the reality is far more complex.