Re: http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListA
rchives/0611/msg00119.html
The view of OA developments from Philip Campbell, the Editor
of
Nature, may seem rather one-sided. The most important OA
developments today, by far, and OA's best hope -- namely,
institutional and funder self-archiving mandates -- are
passed
over in silence by the Editor of Nature, who discusses OA as
if
it were only or mainly a publishing reform model (Gold OA).
Publishing reform is indeed a possible, eventual, but so far
largely hypothetical matter. The immediate reality of OA is
the
growing presence and prospects of OA self-archiving mandates
(Green OA). It is quite appropriate, however, that
publishers
should refrain from expressing their opinions on the subject
of
OA self-archiving mandates, as OA self-archiving mandates
are
*entirely* a research community matter and not a publishing
matter at all.
Let us hope that publishers are equally circumspect in their
lobbying efforts, not attempting to treat the sluggish but
sensible stirrings in the research community toward
maximising
the usage and impact of their own research findings -- by
requiring them to be deposited, free for all users, in their
own
Institutional Repositories -- as if this optimal and
inevitable
practice were somehow conditional on whether or not it might
put
publishers' current revenue streams at risk.
Research is not funded, conducted, and published in order to
provide or protect publishers' revenues but to benefit the
tax-paying public that funds research and research
institutions.
The views of publishers (and their employees) are hence
quite
welcome and natural on the subject of publishing
developments,
and their silence is equally welcome on the subject of
research's
quite natural efforts to widen its reach in the online era.
Publishers can and will adapt to whatever is best for
research,
if need ever be. Till then, a tactful tacet is indeed the
best
policy, and the one that will be most mercifully judged by
history.
(That goes for Learned Societies too, who seem to have got
their
wires crossed, and need to sort out whether they represent
research interests or publishing interests! If there is a
conflict of interest, they need to lay that bare and sort it
out
too, not keep it wrapped in a sanctimonious and self-serving
bundle...)
Pertinent Prior AmSci Topic Thread:
"Open Letter to Philip Campbell, Editor,
Nature" (began Jan 2003)
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2
602.html
Berners-Lee, T., De Roure, D., Harnad, S. and Shadbolt,
N. (2005)
Journal publishing and author self-archiving: Peaceful
Co-Existence
and Fruitful Collaboration
http://eprints.
ecs.soton.ac.uk/11160/
Stevan Harnad
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