Abstract:
Universities are seats of higher education and research. Historically, most universities have been patronized and funded by governments. Most of the research and academic activities in most universities are essentially funded by public funds collected in the form of taxes. However much of the output of the research which is carried out in these universities is unfortunately in possession of commercial publishers. The ever increasing prices of scholarly journals and books have brought even the most resourceful libraries of the world to a saturation point. Libraries are no longer able to sustain subscriptions due to stagnant budgets on the one hand and high-cost of publications on the other. The paper discusses these issues and proposes that the Indian universities take up a leadership role in promoting open access to scholarly publications. This paper argues that it is the social responsibility of universities to encourage and implement open access to scholarly information produced by their respective faculty members and researchers.
