Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/72103
OPEN ACCESS: A SCHOLARLY REVOLUTION Academic journals have two functions: to disseminate new knowledge and to uphold scholarly standards. The rub is, as you may have discovered in searching for research on massage, dissemination has been limited, even when the public's tax dollars fund the research. This seems criminal—it is common knowledge that sharing research advances knowledge, and, in essence, we are paying for the data twice in order to get access to it. Limitations to access are economic and geographic, and affect researchers and the public alike. Traditionally, research data has only been available to those who can afford the hugely expensive subscription fees for a vast array of specialized scholarly journals or to those who have access to a major research library with funding still intact. Research journal fees range between hundreds and several thousands of dollars per year for a single subscription. Massage therapy research is published in any number of journals—from those specializing in psychology, nursing, or physical medicine to those specializing in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). There also are journals on cancer care, on sports injuries, on arthritis—all of interest to massage therapists. To obtain news from basic scientists on the mechanisms of massage, we also need access to journals on biology, chemistry, and neuroscience. Yet, there might be one article in 100 or even one in 1,000 that applies to massage and addresses the question that prompted the search in the first place. It is not cost-effective or time- efficient for us to subscribe to scholarly print journals, except the ones most directed to our professions. For now, the only peer-reviewed, indexed print journal for bodywork is the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies. Having access to research libraries doesn't guarantee access either. State- funded institutions are experiencing budget cuts that affect libraries' ability to subscribe to the selection of journals as before. A single institutional subscription can cost upwards of $20,000 per journal, per year. With an abundance of new CAM journals popping up, libraries are finding it difficult to add more subscriptions when budget cuts are imminent. Limited access to new information is no longer just our plight, but that of researchers, faculty, and students as well.1 OPEN ACCESS MOVEMENT A scholarly revolution is afoot. There is a progressive and widely held belief that the way we share research information should be as advanced as the Internet.2 To accelerate progress in that direction, organizations are popping up to provide free legal and systems support to researchers and institutions. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) is one such organization, working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system.3 The common goal for all participants in this movement is to assure authors retain copyrights and share information in a way that ensures open access (OA) for all.4 The definition of open access—free, unrestricted, online availability— specifically means that one is able to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to full text research articles, and crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the Internet itself.5 This level of access is to be freely available to all users of the World Wide Web.6 The OA movement is limited to research and other scholarly work for two reasons. Since the birth of scholarly journals in 1665, researchers have given away their work in exchange for intangible rewards such as visibility, impact, prestige, certification for career advancement, and a time- stamp to establish their work over other researchers working on the same problem.7 Reputations are built earn CE hours at your convenience: abmp's online education center, www.abmp.com 117