Re: A Note of Caution About "Reforming the System"

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 00:04:01 +0000

On Mon, 16 Dec 2002, Barry Mahon wrote:

>sh> If and when the (500,000?) authors of the annual 2,000,000 articles
>sh> self-archive their peer-reviewed final drafts ("postprints") in their
>sh> own institutional OAI-compliant Eprint Archives (all interoperable with
>sh> one another, harvestable, hence seamlessly internavigable), that primary
>sh> goal [open access to the entire peer-reviewed literature] will be reached.
>
> I am glad you didn't say 'free' Open Access;

I did. Open access means: free, online, full-text access:

http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml

> apart from the non-trivial questions of how such a seamless system
> would be organised technically and organisationally,

See:

(1) http://www.openarchives.org/
(2) http://www.eprints.org/
(3) http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/
(4) http://opcit.eprints.org/

> how will it be paid for?

How are local university websites paid for?

Add about $10 annually per paper self-archived
(and that includes the time it took to self-archive it).

As to how the $500 per paper peer-review service will be paid for
if/when journal access-tolls no longer cover it because of user
preference for the open-access version, see:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm

> Another consideration; how will developing countries access this store?

The same way they access anything else on the web. (And certainly more fully
and openly than their current toll access!)
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2171.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2112.html

> P.S. Thank you for the comprehensive summary of your position on OA.

You're welcome. It is not a new position, but I'm happy to keep
summarizing it for those who are seriously interested, if it helps...

Stevan Harnad

NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open
access to the peer-reviewed research literature online is available at
the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01 & 02):

    http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
                            or
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html

Discussion can be posted to: american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org

See also the Budapest Open Access Initiative:
    http://www.soros.org/openaccess

the Free Online Scholarship Movement:
    http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/timeline.htm

the OAI site:
    http://www.openarchives.org

and the free OAI institutional archiving software site:
    http://www.eprints.org/
Received on Tue Dec 17 2002 - 00:04:01 GMT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Dec 10 2010 - 19:46:46 GMT