Stevan-
I appreciate your general support.
First, I want to call the group's attention to our initial response to the
editors of Science (see
http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/plosScience.htm). We are also
currently drafting a broader response to the growing set of journals that
are siding with Science (see, for example,
http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/rup-tjo032201.html.
I'm not quite as pessimistic as you about our chances for success.
> (i) There is no reason journals should pre-emptively agree to give
> away their own contents online at this time. If researchers wait
> until many or most journals find a reason for doing so, it will be a
> very, very long wait.
This is the reason why we have organized our "boycott". Journal publishers
are a very conservative lot. We are hoping that economic pressure, rather
than good will, will force a change in policy. There is some evidence that
journals are concerned by the growing number of people who have agreed to
shun non-compliant journals and that they are looking to craft positions
that will satisfy them. So long as we respond successfully to their current
set of unacceptable proposals, I think they will move rapidly in the right
direction.
> (ii) Asking authors to choose which journal to submit their
> research to on the basis of whether or not the journal agrees to give
> away its contents online for free rather than on the basis authors
> currently use -- journal quality, reputation, impact factor -- is
> again an unreasonable thing to ask, and will result in a long, long
> wait. More important, it is an unnecessary thing to ask, as there
> is already a means for authors to achieve precisely the same goal
> immediately without having to give up anything at all: by
> self-archiving their refereed articles themselves, in
> interoperable, University Eprint Archives
> <http://www.eprints.org>.
Three years ago we tried to organize such an effort in biomedical sciences
and it was not well received. Although there were many reasons why this
proposal did not fly, I think the main reason was a widespread reluctance to
adopt anything that seemed to be circumventing peer review. I, of course,
understand that self-archiving and peer review are not in conflict, but I
worry that this is still a difficult sell to many biologists.
In recommending alternatives publication options for the people who support
our initiative, we will include self-archiving, along with related options
that we hope will take. One option we are considering is the production of
something like a GPL for scientific manuscripts which scientists would
attach to their manuscripts to remove any copyright restrictions associated
with publication.
> (iii) Creating new journals, without track-records, to draw away
> submissions from the noncompliant established journals, is another
> long uphill path, and again it is not at all clear why authors
> should prefer to take that path, renouncing their preferred
> established journals, when they can have their cake and eat it too
> (through self-archiving).
We are planning on starting new journals on our own. One would be a
high-profile, editorially exclusive journal with a very prominent set of
editors and publishers (drawn from our organizers and supporters) and the
second would essentially be a series of branded self-archives.
Keep up the great work.
-Mike
Michael Eisen, Ph.D. (mbeisen_at_lbl.gov)
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California at Berkeley
http://rana.lbl.gov
--Support Unrestricted Access to Scientific Publications--
--Visit
http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org
----- Original Message -----
From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk>
To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 1:42 AM
Subject: Science Article (Roberts et al.) and Science Editorial
> On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, Thomas Krichel wrote:
>
> > interesting article in the Chronicle of HE
> > "Scholars Urge a Boycott of Journals That
> > Won't Release Articles to Free Archives"
> >
> > http://chronicle.com/free/2001/03/2001032601t.htm
>
> See the original Roberts et al. article on which it is based, in
> this week's Science:
>
> http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/291/5512/2318a
>
> and also "Science's Response" by the Editors:
>
> http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/291/5512/2318b
>
> Roberts et al. are comrades-at-arms, so it is regrettable that I have to
> express some pessimism about the likelihood of success of their
> proposal. My own response to it is appended below. But much more
> important is rebutting the Science Editors' Rebuttal to Roberts et al.
> in their editorial response (in which they offer a compromise -- freeing
> Science's contents on-line 12 months after they are published -- and
> suggesting "Government" do the rest). I am preparing a critique entitled
> "Too Little, Too Late". Stay tuned. Meanwhile, the comment on Roberts et
> al. -- SH
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> THE SELF-ARCHIVING ALTERNATIVE
>
> Stevan Harnad
>
>
> Roberts et al., in "Building A "GenBank" of the Published Literature"
> <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/291/5512/2318a> argue
> compellingly for the following three pleas to publishers and authors:
>
> It is imperative to free the refereed literature online. To achieve this
> goal, the following should be done:
>
> (1) Established journal publishers should give away their
> journal contents online for free.
>
> (2) Authors should submit preferentially to journals that give
> their contents away online for free.
>
> (3) In place of established journals that do not give away their
> contents online for free, new journals (e.g., BioMed Central
> <http://www.biomedcentral.com>) should be established that do.
>
> The goal of freeing the refereed literature online is completely valid,
> optimal for science and scholarship, attainable, inevitable, and indeed
> already overdue. But these proposed means alas do not look like the
> fastest or surest way of attaining that goal, particularly as there is a
> tested and proven alternative means that will attain the very same goal
> without asking journals to do anything, and without asking authors to
> give up anything:
>
> (i) There is no reason journals should pre-emptively agree to give
> away their own contents online at this time. If researchers wait
> until many or most journals find a reason for doing so, it will be a
> very, very long wait.
>
> (ii) Asking authors to choose which journal to submit their
> research to on the basis of whether or not the journal agrees to give
> away its contents online for free rather than on the basis authors
> currently use -- journal quality, reputation, impact factor -- is
> again an unreasonable thing to ask, and will result in a long, long
> wait. More important, it is an unnecessary thing to ask, as there
> is already a means for authors to achieve precisely the same goal
> immediately without having to give up anything at all: by
> self-archiving their refereed articles themselves, in
> interoperable, University Eprint Archives
> <http://www.eprints.org>.
>
> (iii) Creating new journals, without track-records, to draw away
> submissions from the noncompliant established journals, is another
> long uphill path, and again it is not at all clear why authors
> should prefer to take that path, renouncing their preferred
> established journals, when they can have their cake and eat it too
> (through self-archiving).
>
> The details of the self-archiving alternative (including questions of
> copyright and embargo) are fully described in "For Whom the Gate
> Tolls? How and Why to Free the Refereed Research Literature Online
> Through Author/Institution Self-Archiving, Now."
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Stevan Harnad harnad_at_cogsci.soton.ac.uk
> Professor of Cognitive Science harnad_at_princeton.edu
> Department of Electronics and phone: +44 23-80 592-582
> Computer Science fax: +44 23-80 592-865
> University of Southampton http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
> Highfield, Southampton http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/
> SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM
>
> NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free
> access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the
> American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01):
>
> http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
>
> You may join the list at the site above.
>
> Discussion can be posted to:
>
> american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org
>
Received on Wed Jan 03 2001 - 19:17:43 GMT