[shelanachium]

I often speculate on some fairly abstruse stuff and try to find relevant material on the Web. However it's nearly always in subscription-only journals and I lack the financial resources to pay for these (no doubt, were I a professional my employers would pay). Is there any way of accessing such material free of charge? And if there is not, does anyone know of groups campaigning for free access to this information? After all, the findings of science should be available to all.

[Arkcon]

Knowledge has been a money game since Ancient Greece, (before then, in the cradles of human civilization, it was for priests only, so the historical roots outside the Proto-Euro front are no better.)  You, surely, want to be compensated for your work, correct?  Same for academics, journal publishers, librarians, and the gravy train tricks way down, to lab and library janitors.

However, the world is changing.  The cost benefits of online publishing are being passed on to academic institutions, so there are deals to be found, just have to have connections.

[Yggdrasil]

There are a few journals which publish all or some of their articles as open access (Public Library of Science [PLOS] is completely open access, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [PNAS] publishes a few open access articles).  PubMed Central has free access to many journal articles, although often not recent articles.  PubMed Central should grow, though, because now papers describing research funded by the NIH must be deposited in the PubMed Central database some time (6 mo, I think) after publication.  Many groups are also beginning to require publication in open access articles or deposition of articles in an open access database.  The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a very prestigious institute that funds biomedical research, also its researcher to do so and Harvard recently passed similar requirements.

[shelanachium]

Many thanks. Also I can use my local University Library - just less convenient than the Net.

I suppose I'm an oddity in being an amateur who has had some good ideas (I've been told so by professionals) - but can't get published BECAUSE I am an amateur. Sure I'd like to be paid for what I dream up, but to me it's more important that should I come up with a good idea, it gets propagated, through the Net, personal contacts and occasional talks - whether I am paid or not. As I have been doing for some time on my hypothesis that many plant-toxin genes were stolen from micro-organisms that used to live inside the plants. (I am qualified in both botany and chemistry).

I worked as a gardener at Kew Gardens for 9 years, and used to come out with stuff at seminars that was then published by others attending as their own work. (I later realised this was why Kew scientists had pleaded with my boss to let me attend seminars during my working hours!)

I was a little hurt, but at least I knew I'd contributed to the advance of Science!

Get a scientific job then? At 57, and after 10 years out of it following an illness? Nobody gives a job to a guy who was ten years sick!

Many guys like me end up writing. Popular science perhaps? The same professionals who praised my ideas also praised my lucidity.

[billnotgatez]

http://www.sas.org

You might want to look at this site

[shelanachium]

Many thanks. Will do! Tried just now but site wouldn't open. Computer may be in better mood next try!