Directory of Open Access Journals a Boon for Environmental Reporters

A new tool promises to help reporters get quick, free access to scientific journals that are often key to understanding stories that hinge on environmental science: the Directory of Open Access Journals.

It's searchable and published online by Sweden's Lund University, in collaboration with other organizations involved in the growing open-access movement — including even a few publishers. In the United States, a rebellion has sprung up against commercial and subscription-only publishers over public access to articles based on taxpayer-funded research. Some federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, already require that taxpayer-funded research be available online to the public.

The Directory of Open Access Journals already includes some 819742 articles in 7885 journals. About half of these articles can be searched online by keyword. All articles in the database are free, full-text, scientific or scholarly articles that have been quality-controlled by mechanisms such as peer review.

• Previous Article: SEJ WatchDog of February 22, 2012.