Re: Online Self-Archiving: Distinguishing the Optimal from the Optional

From: Arthur P. Smith <apsmith_at_APS.ORG>
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 11:44:58 -0500

Stevan Harnad wrote:

>On Wed, 4 Dec 2002, Arthur P. Smith wrote:
>
>Nope. Even if this ended the serials budget crisis -- though it's hard
>to see how having the poorer parts of the world take over more of the
>burden is a remedy!
>
The spending on publications need only catch up to the spending on
research - which is what you've been proposing all along anyway (under
the author/institution-pays scheme). China has, historically, had a
much higher ratio of research activity to publication spending than the
rest of the world, but that is starting to change. If that ratio can be
normalized around the world (as would be required under any free
archive/author-pays scheme as well), I believe it really will solve the
problem.

> -- it would not solve the far more fundamental
>problem of needless impact-loss (unless you imagine that distributing
>the toll costs more widely would somehow make anywhere near all
>20K peer-reviewed journals affordable to all the world's research
>institutions!).
>

Actually, yes it would, or should. I believe it will actually happen, as
prices adjust to institution size (the other thing that wasn't possible
in the print world).

> Only open access will do that, and the planet-wide
>self-archiving of all peer-reviewed research output is an immediate route
>to that: "Self-archive Unto Others as You Would Have Them Self-Archive
>Unto You."
>
Well, I'm not sure what your definition of "immediate" is there...
Hasn't happened yet anyway.

        Arthur
Received on Wed Dec 04 2002 - 16:44:58 GMT