Skip to content  Open Access for the Few?  by on September 25,
2013  Hardly a day goes buy that I don’t see an email, Facebook
post, or Tweet asking for access to some academic PDF or
another. I’m all for anything that erodes the awful paywall
system that academic publishers have erected in order to
preserve a broken model, but it bothers me that the reality of
the current system is that a small coterie of academics have the
equivalent of open access, while the rest of the world is
blocked out. If I really need access to an article right now,
I’m pretty sure someone at a major research library would email
me a copy, but if someone who isn’t an academic wants that same
article they are unlikely to be able to call upon their social
network in the same way. What is really absurd about this system
is that it is the people least able to pay for access who are
the most likely to have to pay.  About these ads      The U.S.
healthcare “system” in a nutshell.    2. The whole system is
broken and flawed. In theory, I’m