champagne cork
The Popping Cork. Photo (cc) Davepilsbrow.

Here’s a story which has been noted elsewhere quite a while ago. I saw it mentioned at About Archaeology a couple of weeks ago, but I’ll mention it anyway as it’s also very exciting. Internet Archaeology is moving towards an Open Access model.

If you’ve not seen it Internet Archaeology is a solely online journal. I’ve blogged about it before and my major concern has been the access model. Because it’s online it can’t be accessed through interlibrary loan and so it is completely limited to sites with subscriptions. Judith Winters has pointed out in a comment that the papers in IA are often simply not suited to replication, so the access issue has remained a problem. What is so exciting is that JISC have purchased access to all Internet Archaeology’s back issues and subscriptions for the next two years. The practical result is every Further and Higher Education establishment in the UK should have access to Internet Archaeology. At a stroke it’s now a massively more attractive journal to publish in.

I could grumble that I can’t get access from home, which limits me to accessing papers one day every two weeks, but that would be missing the point. Because Internet Archaeology was built on a subscription model the question where does the money come from? is very important. Persuading JISC that the journal is a sound investment seems like a very imaginative solution to the problem. When you look at the funding problems the Arts and Humanities Data Service has at the moment it’s clear that the staff at IA have done a stunning job.

It might not be Open Access yet, but it does look like a sustainable move towards it. Even as it stands it’s a laudable innovation. If you’re outside the UK then it’s still worth a visit for the reviews. I had thought that they were behind a subscription barrier too, but a couple of clicks showed I was wrong about that.