What Ails Open Access Initiative

Professor Leslie Chan, an acknowledged champion of Open Access Initiative (OAI) was at IIITM-K on 18 December 2012.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/call-for-efforts-to-promote-open-access-platforms/article4215981.ece

The authors’ views:

OAI is perfectly fine concept. But it is inherently counter-evolutionary in nature. This, I believe is perhaps the biggest dampener for its sluggish acceptability.

If we take a look at evolution (including social), it is evident that all things regarded as resource at any point of time; gets hoarded for the benefit and development of the clan/society

Today, knowledge is a resource. It transforms itself to power, money and what not. Hence it is only logical that today the forces for collective, voluntary tendency to hoard knowledge are very strong.

Viewed from this perspective, OAI seems somewhat like asking people to hoard rocks instead of gold!