The open-access movement began in the late 1990s following the proliferation of online journals available via the Internet (versions of print journals and journals published only online), the inability of declining library budgets to keep pace with increases in the numbers of journals and rising subscription prices, and demands to reduce the information gap between developed and developing countries. Broadly defined, open access is the free and unrestricted online availability of content. (In the context of biomedical publication, this refers primarily to research articles.) Strictly applied, open-access publishing means that users can freely read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or ...
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