Gramophone's Unique Record

As a young lad getting into classical music, Gramophone was my bible. I would read it pretty much from cover to cover, and it became an important part of my education, imparting not just the bare facts about music and musicians, many of them deeply obscure, but also a sense of what a critical response to both of those might entail.

So the following news is potentially mind-blowing:

Gramophone, the world’s most influential classical music magazine, is to create an exciting new website that promises to transform the classical music industry. The magazine, started in 1923, today announces its commitment to a bold two stage plan.

By September every word ever printed in Gramophone will be available for free as a fully searchable online archive – that’s hundreds and thousands of reviews, articles and interviews, by far the biggest archive of its kind.

This is clearly fantastic news for all those who love classical music - or who want to find out more. But what's in it for the magazine?

The new website, Gramophone.net, will be created in two stages. The first, the creation of the archive, will live alongside this existing website from early September. The start of 2009 will then see the creation of an all-new state-of-the-art website – where downloading, internet mail order and ticket-buying services will be linked to editorial – so visitors will be able to read reviews and features, listen to music samples and then if they wish, buy CDs or book tickets to live events.

This does all the things this blog and many others have been advocating for a while: giving away core content in order sell all kinds of ancillary materials and services. I can't wait.

The BMJ Evolves towards... the Dark Side

The British Medical Journal is a fine institution, with a long and glorious history of publishing important medical research. On top of that it was enlightened, allowing mere members of the public (like me) to read all of its content through an open access policy that placed it at the vanguard of scientific publishing.

No more.

An editorial claims that "The BMJ is evolving". As far as I can tell from information on the site (not to mention the sign-in page I meet at the above address), it seems to be evolving in precisely the opposite direction to everyone else, by reducing the amount of its content that is freely available.

More and more scientific journals recognise the virtues of open access, both in terms of efficiency (the dissemination of knowledge and the building of scientists' reputations) and ethics (since the general public pays through taxes for most published research). A full and very clear explanation of both the why and the how of open access can be found here.

Update: Miraculously, the editorial mentioned above now seems to be available to hoi polloi....