Dear Stevan:
You may write such popular articles periodically and
send them to feature services who may distribute them
to newspapers worldwide.
You may also target library science journals.
Regards.
Arun
--- Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote: >
Dear Arun,
>
> Thanks for the suggestions: I know not all 1000 OA
> journals
> recover costs from author-charges, but this is a
> very simple
> general-public article, and I did not want to add
> needless complications.
> (People seem to have enough trouble understanding as
> it is!)
>
> Also, Bioline is a very worthy organization, but it
> is not
> a no-toll service but a low-toll (and sometimes
> no-toll) one.
> Again, this mixes two agendas, and for this article,
> I wanted
> to keep it simple: open-access only!
>
> Don't worry, I will promote Bioline in the
> appropriate places!
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Stevan
>
> On Tue, 6 Jan 2004, [iso-8859-1] Subbiah Arunachalam
> wrote:
>
> > Stevan:
> >
> > Not all 1000 or so open access journals charge the
> > authors' institution a publication fee as do
> BioMed
> > Central and PLoS. I don't think BMJ charges any
> fee.
> > Nor does Current Science. Of course, Current
> Science
> > gets part of its revenue from subscription to the
> > print version and the rest from grants received by
> the
> > Current Science Association and the Indian Academy
> of
> > Sciences.
> >
> > At the end of your communication, you may kindly
> add
> > the appropriate URL for Bioline, which
> particularly
> > serves journals from developing countries.
> >
> > Regards.
> >
> > Arun
> >
> > --- Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
> > I
> > have not transferred copyright for this piece
> > > (which just appeared in
> > > the Montreal Gazette).
> > >
> >
>
http://www.canada.com/search/story.aspx?id=8e912f55-eb8e-459e-8e7a-a7bd6d8dc995
> > >
> > > So I hereby invite anyone who wishes to
> republish it
> > > in order to help
> > > promote open access to do so. It is written in a
> > > popular style, so if
> > > you can place it in any newspapers or magazines,
> > > please do go ahead!
> > > (I don't care if it appears under my name or
> > > generically.)
> > >
> > > (The full-text below diverges slightly from the
> > > published Gazette version,
> > > e.g., in the title. -- SH)
> > >
> > > Let All Knowledge Be Free That Wants to be Free
> > >
> > > Stevan Harnad
> > > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
> > >
> > > Some well-meaning cowboys have noticed a
> similarity
> > > between the
> > > World-Wide-Web and the Wild-Wild-West, with its
> > > limitless space, free
> > > for the taking. They've concluded that the Web
> Age
> > > means we can at last
> > > have free access to all knowledge.
> > >
> > > I wish they had been right, but unfortunately
> > > knowledge is produced by
> > > people, and not all people want to give away
> their
> > > work for free!
> > >
> > > The authors of most books, for example, are
> quite
> > > aware that the Web is a
> > > medium in which texts can be made accessible to
> > > anyone who clicks on them,
> > > but they'd rather their readers paid for access.
> > > Same is true for singers
> > > and song-writers, and for most writers of
> computer
> > > software. Human nature
> > > being what it is -- and the demands of daily
> > > survival being what they
> > > are -- most people would prefer to be paid for
> their
> > > work, regardless
> > > of whether their product is physical goods and
> > > services or abstract
> > > knowledge. If I cannot be paid for it, why
> bother to
> > > do the work at all?
> > >
> > > But there is one prominent exception. University
> > > reseachers are paid to *do*
> > > research, but they publish it (in research
> journals)
> > > for free. Unlike all
> > > other authors, they don't ask for any fee or
> royalty
> > > for these writings.
> > >
> > > Why?
> > >
> > > Because in publishing them they are not looking
> for
> > > sales revenue but
> > > for "research impact." How many users read,
> apply,
> > > use, build-upon and cite
> > > my research? Those are the numbers on which the
> > > researcher's career and
> > > research-funding depend.
> > >
> > > So what's the problem then? This knowledge was
> > > give-away knowledge
> > > already in the paper era. Now that we have the
> Web,
> > > we can give
> > > it all away big-time!
> > >
> > > Not so fast!
> > >
> > > I said the researchers give it away, but that
> > > doesn't mean its users don't
> > > have to pay! For the only way to get access --
> > > either on paper or online
> > > -- to the contents of the 24,000 research
> journals
> > > in which 2.5 million
> > > research articles appear yearly every year is
> for
> > > the would-be user's
> > > university to pay for access. And the fact is
> that
> > > the access-tolls
> > > are so high that universities can afford access
> only
> > > to a small and
> > > shrinking fraction of them. That means that the
> > > world's research output
> > > is inaccessible to most of its would-be users,
> > > despite the fact that it
> > > is and always has been an author give-away!
> > >
> > > This represents a great loss to research,
> > > researchers, their institutions,
> > > their research funders, and the tax-payers who
> are
> > > paying for it all. It
> > > has been estimated that articles that are
> accessible
> > > toll-free on the
> > > Web have 336% more research impact than those
> that
> > > are only available
> > > via toll-access. (336% may not seem like a large
> > > increase, but
> > > considering that most research is not cited at
> all,
> > > this figure is
> > > actually astronomical.)
> > >
> > > Why are there still access-blocking tolls, then?
> So
> > > that journals can
> > > continuing making ends meet. Why do we still
> need
> > > journals at all, if
> > > access can be provided for free on the Web?
> Because
> > > journals provide "peer
> > > review," which ensures that the research is
> reliable
>
=== message truncated ===
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Received on Tue Jan 06 2004 - 04:03:21 GMT