Over at the Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, librarian Heather Morrison has been tracking the Dramatic Growth of Open Access over the past couple of years in a series of blog posts.
On Friday, Morrison noted that the growth rate of the DOAJ (directory of open access journals) has almost doubled in the past year. She writes:
This simple chart illustrates the near doubling of the growth rate of the Directory of Open Access Journals from 2007 to 2008, from an average of more than 1.2 new title per calendar day, to an average of 2.2 new titles per calendar day.
As further illustration of the growth rate of DOAJ: as of today, DOAJ includes 3,587 journals , and has added 63 new titles in the last 30 days, more than 2 new titles per day (and it’s August!). Since September 30, 2007, DOAJ has grown from 2,846 titles, an increase of 741 titles in 11 months, or 330 days at 30 days/month, for an average net growth of 2.2 titles per day. In the September 30, 2007 Dramatic Growth of Open Access update, I noted a growth rate of 1.2 titles / day for DOAJ over the previous year.
Now, if you’re like me and need a visual aid to understand the rate of growth in absolute number of titles versus rate of new titles, check out this chart I tossed together from Heather’s data:
This post is here not only to call attention to the “Dramatic Growth of Open Access,” but also to assist in illustrating the use of Creative Commons licensed content. The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics is published under a CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Canada license, meaning I can reuse IJPE content and make derivative works as long as it’s not for profit and I use a similar license.
As noted on our About page, SJL is published under the similar, although not identical Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license.
-Greyson
Social Justice Librarian 