[Subject Thread re-directed from "Re: Napster: stealing another's vs. giving
away one's own"
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3481.html ]
In Stevan's recent pedagogical exchange there is the following question
and answer:
>> Can you answer this critique of self-archiving? If everybody
>> self-archives their peer-reviewed preprints, why would anybody need
>> to buy the journal copy? (like what happened in physics?).
> The best answer is empirical facts. (You, like everyone else, are merely speculating
> here!) Parts of physics have been self-archiving since 1991. Some subfields of it,
> like HEP, have reached 100% open-access that way some time ago. Yet no physics
> journal has folded or even experienced cancellation pressure. Indeed one prominent
> "born-gold" journal, JHEP, which reached a whopping impact factor of 7 within a
> few years of its launching, has since reverted from the gold cost-recovery model
> (OA) to the green one (TA), yet 100% of its contents were, are, and remain OA via
> self-archiving!
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1812.html
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm
My question is Friday afternoon musing for the librarians reading - why
are you subscribing to physics journals where the majority (if not all)
of the material is available for free? Is it because your readers value
the formatting? Is there sufficient difference between the pre-prints
and final versions? Is it force of habit? Is it because they come as
part of large bundles and it is easier to take them than to cancel? If
you now subscribe to JHEP why did you make that decision?
I know that some (such as Oldenburg) have cancelled or are considering
cancelling, but these institutions appear to be rare at the moment. (I
would also question whether it is true that no physics journal has
experienced cancellation pressure - some physics publishers may have a
view on that!)
I don't mean my question to be flippant or censorious, I'm just curious!
David C Prosser PhD
Director
SPARC Europe
E-mail: david.prosser_at_bodley.ox.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 1865 284 451
Mobile: +44 (0) 7974 673 888
http://www.sparceurope.org
-----Original Message-----
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [Stevan Harnad]
Sent: 23 January 2004 15:09
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: Napster: stealing another's vs. giving away one's own
Subject thread begins:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0670.html
[This is an exchange with a student -- a member of the napster
generation -- who is writing on self-archiving]:
>sh> You're mixing up author give-aways with consumer rip-offs, you're mixing up
>sh> publication with archiving, you're misusing the word "peer" here and forgetting
>sh> about peer review, and you need to read the "napster" FAQ again...
>sh> http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#24.Napster
>sh> http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001643/00/newscientist.htm
>
> I am mixing it up. But I am somewhere in this next generation (...downloading a
> movie currently...) and it's all going to be free eventually, anyway. :)
But that "eventually" will be to the eternal discredit of the scholarly/scientific
community, because they could have had it all so much earlier:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0025.gif
> I still feel (some) guilt. But my little sisters don't think twice about it. I
> think you're right, the next generation will not put up with this at all.
You *should* feel guilt about napster! But the research community should
feel guilt about napping (instead of self-archiving). Napster is
consumer rip-off; self-archiving is producer give-away.
> But, meanwhile, we can't make it too obvious that the commercial journals are
> DOOMED.
It's not *at all* obvious that journals are doomed! But I do think
some may be banking on the fact that the research community will keep
on napping for a long time to come. (And they may alas be right!) The
research-community's latest zeno-paralytic daydream is "Waiting for
Gold":
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#31.Waiting
> Can you answer this critique of self-archiving? if everybody self-archives
> their peer-reviewed preprints, why would anybody need to buy the journal copy?
> (like what happened in physics?).
The best answer is empirical facts. (You, like everyone else, are
merely speculating here!) Parts of physics have been self-archiving since
1991. Some subfields of it, like HEP, have reached 100% open-access
that way some time ago. Yet no physics journal has folded or even
experienced cancellation pressure. Indeed one prominent "born-gold"
journal, JHEP, which reached a whopping impact factor of 7 within a few
years of its launching, has since reverted from the gold cost-recovery
model (OA) to the green one (TA), yet 100% of its contents were, are,
and remain OA via self-archiving!
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1812.html
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm
(That's peer-reviewed *post*prints, by the way: "preprints" are
*pre*-peer-review.)
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#What-is-Eprint
> So in effect, while you maintain that self-archiving is "non-napster"
> and perfectly legal (which it is), it actually is cleverly subversive?
> It's an 'end-run' maneuver that will eventually make
> the commercial journals irrelevant.
I called it "subversive" in 1994
http://www.arl.org/scomm/subversive/toc.html
but it can hardly be called subversive in 2004, now the word's out!
It can only be called somnolent, or possibly soporific!
It's already too late to do it early!
But better later than never. The Green Road is still wide open, and as
more eyes are opened, we at last seem to be getting into motion:
"The Green Road to Open Access: A Leveraged Transition"
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3378.html
"University policy mandating self-archiving of research output"
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3438.html
Stevan Harnad
NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open
access to the peer-reviewed research literature online (1998-2004)
is available at the American Scientist Open Access Forum:
To join the Forum:
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Unified Dual Open-Access-Provision Policy:
BOAI-2 ("gold"): Publish your article in a suitable open-access
journal whenever one exists.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#journals
BOAI-1 ("green"): Otherwise, publish your article in a suitable
toll-access journal and also self-archive it.
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
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Received on Fri Jan 23 2004 - 16:14:20 GMT
