Filtered Science

I ask every science writer I meet the same question.

Trace science blog articles back to the primary literature and you'll notice a strikingly high proportion source from open access articles. This goes for many news headlines too. Especially freelance science writers are disabled when it comes to accessing journal articles.

When I was a university employee, it was easy to take the library -the access- for granted. The process by which scientists and their discoveries make headlines or blog lines didn't seem a mystery when I had gloved hands. Fascinating science was obvious. The experiments leaped out of the journal. Even if the science wasn't ground breaking, the topics were gripping and the experiments, telling.

But now that my gloves are off and my password not functional, titles jump from the screen, topics may seem tantalizing -but they're just titles, topics and abstracts. Getting the article, the details of the research -or the background- is another story.

My question to the science writers I meet: Access, how do you get it? The solutions I've come across are always disappointing. The best involve relying on open access articles and retrieving the articles directly from the author. Sure there are ways; but the once deft, gloved hands are now somewhat tied.

What's more disappointing than not having fingertip access to all the cutting edge research, is the realization that the public in turn doesn't either -the science to some degree is filtered.