twitter: my cat woke me at 4am this morning. Out of the just-awake brew of dream fragments jostling against "what day is it?" arose the thought "open access is inevitable." Weird but true.

....here are the 6 points that tumbled out

• electronic access is quick and available
• not all questions need "every possible bit of pertinent discussion" to be adequately answered (a la Francis Blouin)
• researchers have never had access to everything said on a topic, and have always balanced effort against finishing a project
• the user will determine how much time and effort they want to spend
• as more and more outlets become open access, all that is locked behind access barriers will become difficult to get at, and perhaps no longer worth the effort (or price...)
• at some point in the not too distant future we may see researchers "not go to subscriptions" just like they "rarely go to the shelves".

In the clear light of day, I add the question mark, leading us to "Is Open Access Inevitable?" It's really a series of questions...how successful will for-profit publishers be in legislating against open access? and, how soon will tenure and open access be friends? and, how will user day-to-day desires balance against the answers from vested interests in the status quo?

I still think open access is inevitable. This morning, I guess, the more important question seems "when will the planet tip?"