open open Sesame or opening Pandora's Box?

Source:

Ojala, Marydee. "open open Sesame or opening Pandora's Box?." EContent 28.6 (June 2005): 30-35. Education Research Complete. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 6 Aug. 2009 http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=17216644&loginpage=Login.asp&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Abstract:
This article focuses on the various issues related to Open Access. Particularly, it discusses the various misconceptions and misunderstandings that surrounds the OA term. Users frequently assume that OA is similar to the concept of the Open Web, Open Source and Open Archive. However these terms are certainly different from the concept of Open Access. Another issue discussed in this article is whether Open Access points out either concepts of “Open Sesame” or Opening up Pandora’s Box. According to the article, it is “Open Sesame” since OA provides free scholarly articles to the research community and ordinary individuals, plus the idea of sharing is emphasized. However, the Open Access Initiative also brings out several economic and legal issues that may greatly affect the society. So in this case, it is like Opening up “Pandora’s box” and all unforeseen troubles will come out. Finally, since Open Access articles are sometimes difficult to search, this article suggested different searching tools such as Scirus, DOAJ, OAIster, Google Scholar, etc that will aid the individual in searching for free scholarly and peer-reviewed articles in the Internet.

Three things that I learned from this article:
1. Sometimes I also associate the Open Access term to Open Source and other related terms. This article served as a clearer of ambiguities and confusions about the definition and concept of OA.
2. Learned other searching tools that I can use to search and retrieve free full-text articles in the Internet.
3. The Open Access Initiative does not point out either “Open Sesame” or “Opening-up Pandora’s Box concepts. It actually points out both.

Reflections:
We all know that the concepts mentioned above both exist for Open Access. Certainly with the presence of Open Access Journals, the publishing industry would be affected since there would be fewer subscriptions to journals databases. As a librarians’ point of view however, I think that the economic and legal problems that might come out through the advent of Open Access should only be secondary. We must always remember the numerous advantages and benefits that OA is providing to the community. The issue on Digital Divide should always be considered. Like here in the Philippines, not all Libraries and Learning and Resource Centers have the capacity to subscribe to the high cost of journal databases offered by prominent publishers of scholarly content. Therefore, the access to various Open Access journals and databases should not be at all questioned.