Starting in October, the Boston Globe will start a digital-only subscription of $3.99 a week for access to stories and breaking news from their website. The new pay-to-read website will be accessible anywhere using a “responsive web design” that automatically adjusts to any screen. This business model differs from other online newspapers that allow you to read a set number of articles per month/week/day before having to pay. The Boston Globe will take a similar approach withBoston.com, giving the “brand” more local news and selected Globe pieces to people with and without subscriptions. Subscribers of the print will have full access to both sites.

Meanwhile, scholarly research is continuing the march in the other direction, from publishing in journals with heavy subscription fees to open access online publishing. This move derives from scientific journals’ original intent: to share scientific knowledge and information from publicly funded research. Even in the advent of the internet, academic journals have been available for download in the $30-$40 range, per article, making the crossover to free information just what researchers and those interested in science needed. In the case of open access publishing, it is generally the author (or their institution) who pays for their work to be published, as opposed to the reader paying to read it, making it a marked difference from The Boston Globe’s new model.

Links:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/academic-publishers-making-murdoch-look-good/ – Wired science news
http://www.ecancermedicalscience.com/news-insider-news.asp?itemId=1989 – ecancermedicalscience Insider news
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2011/09/12/globe_starts_far_ranging_paid_website_for_all_devices/– Boston.com business news
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access – Open Access,Wikipedia