Re: Author Publication Charge Debate

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 03:51:08 +0000

I must say that, despite all efforts, I find myself completely incapable
of following the reasoning of Mr. Suhail:

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004, Suhail A. R. wrote:

> While so many people are stressing on self archiving may I suggest
> another method I call personal archiving... email the author, and you
> get the full text... [T]ill somone comes up with a better way to convince
> existing journals to look for mechanisms to remove tolls, we should push
> for embargoed access + author email address...

Mr. Suhail for some reason doesn't like self-archiving. He thinks that
rather than clicking for toll-free access to self-archived articles users
should have to email each article's author for an eprint and each author
should have to email out each eprint, each time. (Why self-impose this
arbitrary, needless and time- and effort-wasting handicap, one wonders?)

> There is no problem at all. Hundreds of TA journals are available to
> serve the needs of the poor (in terms of publishing costs).

If there is no problem, why do users need to email for eprints?

Mr. Suhail does not like to pay OA journals for publishing his
articles. That is a tenable position. But then he doesn't like the
alternative of providing OA to his articles by self-archiving them
either. He prefers being emailed for and emailing out eprints instead.
Moreover, he does not see any problem with TA journals, even in the poor
countries. And he would be happy with toll-free access to articles only
after a one-year embargo.

These are very odd views, but now that we have heard them (several times
over), shouldn't we move on -- unless others too share them, and can
give us a clue as to why such arbitrary and unnecessary handicaps
might be preferable to the obvious and readily available alternatives
under discussion in this Forum?

Stevan Harnad

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/
    http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml
    http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
Received on Sat Feb 14 2004 - 03:51:08 GMT

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