Re: Cliff Lynch on Institutional Archives

From: Lee Miller <lnm2_at_cornell.edu>
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 18:20:59 +0000

On Sun, Mar 16 Stevan Harnad wrote:

> > The primary sense of belonging
> > of a scholar in her research activities is with the disciplinary
> > community of which she thinks herself a part... It certainly
> > is not with the institution.
>
>That may or may not be the case, but in any case it is irrelevant to
>the question of which is the more promising route to open-access. Our
>primary sense of belonging may be with our family, our community,
>our creed, our tribe, or even our species. But our rewards (research
>grant funding and overheads, salaries, postdocs and students attracted
>to our research, prizes and honors) are intertwined and shared with our
>institutions (our employers) and not our disciplines (which are often
>in fact the locus of competition for those same rewards!)

But this is not just a matter of rewards. Disciplinary communities play a
vital role in adding coherence to a field. They help researchers focus on
the developing streams of thought and discovery, and on the
interrelationships between specialized knowledge and the broader body of
knowledge residing in the discipline.

I admire your clear-headed concentration on the primary goal of open
access. But surely the usefulness of open access can be increased by
simultaneously developing some additional features.

Lee Miller
Editor Emeritus
Ecology and Ecological Monographs
Received on Sun Mar 16 2003 - 18:20:59 GMT