The Loon isn’t entirely sure that the ability of grant funders, governments particularly, to make open-access mandates stick is wholly a function of money. Oh, the money helps, no doubt about that. Given the general wandering-around-in-fogness of the typical faculty member around matters scholarly-communicationsish, though, the Loon thinks another key determinant is having brutally conditioned faculty to blind hoop-jumping.

Hey. Whatever works. It can feel humiliating to fight for open access for years only to be outdone by faceless bureaucracy—but whatever works.

Anyway, the European Union has put forward some open-access recommendations, and UK science minister David Willett has spearheaded the UK’s commitment to open access by 2014.

Neither of these is a perfect document, but the Loon (like Dr. Curry) is quite happy to let the perfect slide in favor of the really quite astonishingly good.

Thank you, Europe. In light of these gains, the Loon awaits the White House’s official response to the open-access petition with even sharper interest.

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