My own thinking, and the philosophy of bepress, is that
the=20
university is filled with many interests and
constituencies.=20
The puzzle is getting them to work well together. Faculty
seek to=20
promote themselves individually, and seek control and
identity;=20
universities seek to promote themselves and grow; librarians
seek=20
to create useful order from chaos. These goals can, but need
not,=20
conflict.
As to mandates, I favor them. As I see it, the university
or=20
government funds much of my research. Why should they not
demand=20
and insist on a non-exclusive copy of my writings to
preserve for=20
posterity (for what posterity cares about my work) or to=20
advertise to the world, should I be lucky enough that UC
Berkeley=20
could bask in the glory of my writing?
All that said, for various political and practical
reasons,=20
including lobbying by Elsevier, I don't see *effective*
mandates=20
coming for a little while yet.
In the meantime, the key for those who are pro-repository is
to=20
find a way to work with faculty. How do you make
faculty=20
volunteer or indeed be eager? Convince them that their
career=20
will benefit and give them control and something to
identify=20
with. Faculty want their own place...one they control... on
the=20
internet. Many build sites themselves with cumbersome and
kludgy=20
tools. These sites are highly idiosyncratic data
structures.=20
Better that they should be easy to use, beautiful, and
easily=20
harvestable (or automatically incorporated) into the=20
institution's IR (or Research Showcase, as I like to call
it).
For this, bepress developed SelectedWorks=20
(http://works.bepress.com
). D-space has developed personal=20
research pages. These, I predict, will be key to
filling=20
repositories until effective mandates arrive.
___
P.S. Please have a look at=20
http://wo
rks.bepress.com/aaron_edlin/=A0and sign up for=20
notifications of my new work! =A0 Aaron Edlin Chairman,
The=20
Berkeley Electronic Press Richard Jennings Professor of
Economics=20
and Law, UC Berkeley Homepage:=20
http://works.be
press.com/aaron_edlin/
Co-Editor, The Economists' Voice, http://www.bepress.com/ev
Editor, The B.E. Journals of Theoretical Economics,
http://www.bepress.com/b
ejte
-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l lists.yale.edu] On Behalf
Of Anthony Watkinson
Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2007 8:06 PM
To: liblicense-llists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: NIH mandate - institutional repositories
It is no point in Professor Harnad's coming out with a whole
lot=20
of references to assertions made by him or his friends
and=20
associates, almost none of which come from the
peer-reviewed=20
literature. I am only a part-time academic but to me there
is a=20
real difference between an institutional repository that
exists=20
to serve faculty and an institutional repository that is
part of=20
a mechanism telling me what I must do.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stevan Harnad" <harnadecs.soton.ac.uk>
To: <liblicense-llists.yale.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2007 4:01 AM
Subject: Re: NIH mandate - institutional repositories
> On 21-Nov-07, at 7:53 PM, Anthony Watkinson wrote:
>
>> I cannot claim to be an expert on institutional
repositories
>> and their history but the first time I became aware
of them was
>> from a presentation by Ann Wolpert one the
originators of
>> DSpace. It was my understanding then and it is my
understanding
>> now that for some involved in the IR movement the
purpose was
>> to provide a service to faculty. The DSpace mission
from one of
>> the sites reads:
>>
>> DSpaceT is a free, open source software platform
that allows
>> research organizations to offer faculty and
researchers a
>> professionally managed searchable archive for their
digital
>> assets. DSpace focuses on simple access to these
assets, as
>> well as their long-term preservation.
>>
>> It is my understanding that DSpace development was
in progress
>> by 2000.
>
> At the end of 2000. IRs began in 1999-2000, with
EPrints, at
> Southampton, where CogPrints (designed by Matt Hemus,
a
> Southampton ECS doctoral student) was first made
OAI-compliant
> and then turned into EPrints generic IR software by Rob
Tansley
> (likewise a Southampton ECS doctoral student) in 2000:
>
> http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october00/10inbrief.html#HARNAD
>
> EPrints was widely adopted and Rob Tansley was then
recruited by
> MIT and Hewlett-Packard to create DSpace.
>
> http://www.apsr.edu.au/Open_Repositories_2006/speakers
.htm
>
> EPrints and DSpace are now the two most widely used IR
softwares
> worldwide.
>
> htt
p://roar.eprints.org/index.php?action=3Dbrowse
>
>> In 2002 a very different definition was proposed by
Raym Crow
>> in his SPARC position paper - see
>> http://www.arl.org/sparc/bm~doc/ir_final_release_102.pd
f. The
>> definition of IRs set out in his abstract is very
different and
>> speaks of reforming scholarly communication in line
with the
>> SPARC agenda.
>
> IRs were originally on the right track: OA
self-archiving. The
> SPARC position paper scrambled that a little with some
rather
> quackish ideas about publishing reform.
>
> htt
p://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/crow.html
>
>> My picture is that SPARC have attempted to hi-jack
an agenda
>> which was faculty-centred into one which is
library-centred,
>> some libraries that is. The mandates proposed are
only
>> necessary because faculty persistently refuse to
fit in with
>> this new agenda which does not represent their
needs or wishes.
>
> This is a misimpression. The mandates have nothing to
do with
> SPARC or a hi-jacked agenda.
>
> http:
//www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/
>
> They have to do with the fact that busy faculty will
not do
> anything -- even something that is in their own
interests --
> unless it is required. But if self-archiving is
required, Alma
> Swan's surveys have shown that over 95% of faculty
report they
> will comply, over 80% of them saying they will comply
willingly.
>
> http://eprints.
ecs.soton.ac.uk/10999/
>
> And Arthur Sale's studies on actual behavior confirm
this:
> Faculty do not self-archive in great numbers
spontaneously, or if
> merely invited, requested or encouraged to do it,
whereas they
> self-archive at substantially higher rates if it is
mandated --
> approaching full compliance within about 2 years.
>
> http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_10/sale/in
dex.html
>
> This is not surprising, as faculty also comply with
publish-or-perish
> mandates -- and would publish a good deal less without
them
>
> http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw64/h
arnad.html
>
> Stevan Harnad
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