Open access, a necessary model of scientific communication

Scientific communication is essential for the development of the science practice and its core is the scientific journals. The open access movement appears within the current electronic environment as an answer to the continuous growing of information, its high cost and the economic crisis. This movement seeks to eliminate economic and legal barriers in the dissemination of the research results. Its objective is to maximize the impact of research by facilitating its access. This paper describes its origin, development, support and future; and it also describes the process to open access publishing and self-archiving in repositories, the search engines and collectors specific to open access.