Comment resources for authors (Score 1) 277
The costs of obtaining scholarly journals has been a major problem for over 2 decades, it seems to be getting more press in the last 5 years as the libraries have run out of simple fixes (consolidating purchases, canceling low use journals, etc) and the major publishers are now the only remaining places to cut back.
Here are some organizations that have been working to provide alternatives to authors and libraries, the rapid success of PLOS: Biology has certainly demonstrated that the traditional publishing models can be changed
SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition
Group affiliated with the American Research Libraries organization
http://www.arl.org/sparc/
Highwire Press
A major non-profit publishing initiative linked to Stanford University
http://highwire.stanford.edu/
Create Change
Organization working to inform authors/researchers about their options in publishing
http://www.createchange.org/