Today, increasingly more comprehensive studies demonstrate the « OA Advantage », i.e. the objective advantage of publishing scientific papers in open access where readership is much wider and the number of citations higher. There are two reasons for this: the first and more obvious one is that there are more chances to be read, given that access is free; the second (and intrisic to electronic publication in general) is that the citation count is done more directly and accurately.
This has been very clearly demonstrated in an excellent article written by Steve Hitchcock. Published for the first time in 2004, it has been revised regularly, the last time in April 2009; it is a perfect example of the revolution which is taking place in the « liquid publication » concept I talked about a year ago. This principle is extraordinarily useful for publications that analyze highly evolving situations that require regular updating. Bibliometry is only one of many fields exposed to rapid expiry, all of which could benefit from the same technique.