New York Times recently reported on Harvard University's ambitious program to "begin posting research and articles produced by its faculty on the Internet free of charge." It goes on to describe how this program is going to administered:
The [University Library] will oversee an Office of Scholarly Communication, which is being created to handle the project. Professor Darnton said a Web site instructing the faculty on how to transmit articles is already up and running, and the technical work should be completed by April 1.
My initial response is to see this as an ambitious and innovative move, but I suspect that in practical application it may fail. After all, some academic research is supported or commissioned by groups that do not want the results published, including in some cases the US government. Expect some aspects of this program to bear good fruit, and the list of research program "exceptions" to grow over time.
