In addition to the new program, review articles, tutorials, and most letters published in all SPIE journals have been made open access by SPIE without cost to either authors or readers. For its Journal of Biomedical Optics, SPIE deposits articles funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health with PubMed Central on the authors' behalf.

"As an educational society with the goal of disseminating knowledge as broadly as possible, SPIE is pleased to provide yet another way for more people to read about and use the latest research in optics and photonics," said Eric Pepper, SPIE Director of Publications.

Have you checked out SPIE Journals? All of which include Open Access articles:…

“Should the authors themselves pay for open-access publication or should the readers continue to pay, as they have been doing for more than two centuries?” said Akhlesh Lakhtakia of Pennsylvania State University, and Editor of Journal of Nanophotonics. SPIE has confronted these and related issues, and decided in favor of a flexible approach. SPIE Journals utilize a hybrid publishing model, including both Open Access and paid papers. For authors, Open Access should lead to more awareness and…

"Open access complements the primary mission of SPIE as a not-for-profit society: to foster knowledge transfer, education, and networking among researchers, technology leaders, educators, and students engaged in the industries we serve," said SPIE CEO Eugene Arthurs. "This is a driving force in all of our programs, including our role as publisher."

To support researchers in developing or soft-currency countries, SPIE participates in the eJDS program of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, providing on demand papers to individual scientists. Also, through the Information Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications PERii program, SPIE provides access to libraries in developing nations at no or marginal cost.