** Cross-Posted **
EDINA, SHERPA and JISC have just announced DEPOT which looks
as
if it will be a superb service, and a model for all
countries
worldwide that wish to provide Open Access to their research
output.
http://depot.edina.ac.uk/
http://depot.edina.ac.u
k/FAQ/
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2007/04/news_depot.
aspx
DEPOT is many things, but chiefly a mediator for
Institutional
Repositories (IRs):
(a) If your institution already has an IR, Depot will
redirect
your deposit there, while also registering it and tracking
it
centrally, to make sure the deposit is picked up by the
major
search engines.
(b) If your institution does not yet have an IR, you can
deposit
directly in Depot and Depot will provide access to your
deposit
until your institution has an IR, at which point it will
transfer
your deposit to your IR.
I have mostly only congratulations for the designers and
implementers of Depot. It is the optimal synthesis: It
emphasises
the author's own IR as the canonical locus for OA content.
It
monitors and integrates all of the UK's IRs. And it provides
a
provisional locus for any researcher whose institution does
not
yet have an IR (or for researchers who are not affiliated
with an
institution).
I do have two important suggestions, however:
(1) Currently, Depot states that only postprints can be
deposited.
(The postprint is either the author's peer-reviewed final
draft,
accepted for publication, or the published PDF itself.)
(2) Depot also states that the deposit depends on the policy
of
the publisher (and it does not state *when* deposit should
be
done).
(The depositor is instead referred to the Romeo directory of
publisher policies on author self-archiving).
I strongly suggest two small but crucial changes in
connection
with these two points:
(1') Do not restrict the deposit to postprints.
Include
preprints too.
(Preprints are pre-peer-review versions of articles that are
to
be submitted for peer-reviewed publication.)
(2') Make it clear that the deposit of the postprint
should be done
as soon as the article is accepted for publication (and
the preprint
even earlier, to be followed by the postprint as soon
as it exists)
-- and, most important of all, make it clear that the
deposit itself
does *not* depend on publisher policy: only the
*access-setting* does.
The postprints of articles for which the publisher has not
yet
endorsed self-archiving can all still be deposited
immediately
upon acceptance for publication, but the deposit can be
provisionally set as Closed Access, instead of Open Access,
with
only the metadata accessible to all.
Depot's FAQ is not quite clear on the relation between
itself and
the many IRs. Presumably if the author's institution has an
IR,
Depot will redirect the deposit there. (In that case,
excluding
preprints is not a good idea, not only because they are
crucial
precursors of postprints, but because all IRs will welcome
both
preprints and postprints. It would be a very bad idea to try
to
draw a formal line between the two.)
Moreover, it is stated that Depot itself will be based on
the
EPrints IR software. That means that it will have (i) the
option
for Closed Access deposit and (ii) the "Fair Use"
Button --
REQUEST EMAIL EPRINT. With those features, almost-OA can be
provided almost immediately and semi-automatically:
Any would-be user webwide, led by the metadata to a deposit
that
turns out to be in Closed Access, can just copy/paste his
email
address in a box that is provided by the software, and press
the
REQUEST EMAIL EPRINT button. This sends the author an
automatic
email eprint request, containing a URL on which the author
need
merely click in order to authorize the automatic emailing of
one
copy of his eprint to the requester.
http://www.eprints.org/news/features/request_button.php
There is a vast difference between deferring deposit until
the
publisher endorses OA deposit, and doing an immediate CA
deposit,
deferring only the OA. Depot should definitely facilitate
the
latter practise.
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/
71-guid.html
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives
/136-guid.html
Some clarification is also needed of the mechanism of
transfer from
Depot to the author's IR.
But overall, the Depot service is near-perfect, and once
optimised with these two small changes, it is worthy of not
only
admiration but emulation worldwide.
Stevan Harnad
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