# African Journals Online - wonderful, but I want access


Through
[Willinsky](http://ed.stanford.edu/suse/faculty/displayRecord.php?suid=willinsk)’s
book “[The Access Principle](http://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262232425)“, I
came across the site [African Journals Online](http://www.ajol.info/),
which is trying to make African journals more visible, and alleviate the
problem that many of them are not being indexed in commercial indexing
systems like
[SSCI](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Sciences_Citation_Index), and
have low visibility both to Western researchers, but also to researchers
in other African countries.

The site publishes the abstract of 330 scholarly journals published in
Africa, from [Global Journal of Social
Sciences](http://www.ajol.info/viewissue.php?jid=132&id=5155&ab=gjss)
based in Nigeria, via [Shakespeare in Southern
Africa](http://www.ajol.info/journal_index.php?jid=333&ab=SiSA)
published in South Africa, to [Agronomie
Africaine](http://www.ajol.info/journal_index.php?jid=7&ab=aga)
published in Cote D’Ivoir. Browsing through the latest issues, I found a
number of articles that interest me, such as:

-   Edwards, Hlongwane and Thwala. [African, Indian And Chinese Patterns
  Of Energy
  Healing](http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=160&id=40162&layout=abstract).
  Indilinga Vol. 6 (2) 2007 pp. 164-176
-   Meshesha and Jawahar. [Indigenous Scripts Of African
  Languages](http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=160&id=40159&layout=abstract).
  *Indilinga* Vol. 6 (2) 2007 pp. 132-142
-   Muwanga. [The Politics of Higher Education Reform: The Case of
  Makerere
  University](http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=174&id=19820&layout=abstract).
  African Journal of Political Science, Vol.9(1) 2004: 50-70.
-   Buekes and Pienaar. [Some factors influencing the use of
  simultenious interpreting as an alternative to parallel-medium
  teaching in tertiary
  education](http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=37&id=34189&layout=abstract).
  Journal for Language Teaching Vol. 40 (2) 2006: pp.127-139.

However, I want to actually read these articles… This is in no way
denigrating a great project, but a cry out for more. When I present the
ideas behind open access, and open educational resources, there is
always someone who likens it to Western cultural imperialism, and how we
will flood the rest of the world with our knowledge. Although not an
argument to be taken lightly, I would argue that this is already
happening, but that it is the developing countries themselves that can
benefit the most from Open Access, also in terms of having their own
knowledge spread! I really want to cite more authors from the countries
that I do research in, but if I cannot access their writings, that is
difficult - and sadly, even University of Toronto will not have
subscriptions to many of these.

The Indian publisher [MedKnow](http://www.medknow.com/aboutus.asp) is a
great example of how Open Access can benefit journals published in
developing countries. With over 65 open access journals, that don’t
charge subscription fees, it might be the biggest open access publisher
in the world. Through distribution online, not only has print
subscriptions increased significantly, international submissions have
gone up, and together with income from paper subscriptions, Google ads
on the online site helps turn a small profit. (See this [article about
open access in
India](http://openmed.nic.in/1599/01/Open_Access_in_India.pdf) for more
information).

Stian