The OA problem today is deposit, not withdrawal

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2006 16:38:02 +0000

On Sat, 7 Jan 2006, Barry Mahon wrote:

"> On Fri, 06 Jan 2006 19:31:21 +0100, Heather Morrison wrote
>
> > Many thanks for bringing forth yet another open access opportunity -
> > which at first glance appeared to be a "problem".
>
> I think your response indicates that it is an open access matter -
> contrary to Stevan's view....

I don't want to prolong this discussion (which I continue to suggest
is not an OA matter), but I would like to point out that at a time when
less than 15% of the target OA content is as yet even being *deposited*,
this hardly seems the opportune moment to start fretting over whether
or how the 0.00001% that might one day conceivably be retracted from
a journal would be withdrawn from an OA archive.

OA deposits that prove erroneous can indeed be withdrawn from an OA
archive, with the withdrawal openly tagged as having taken place at
the old deposit's URL or archive locus (see the withdrawal mechanisms
of the GNU Eprints software). But bootleg copies that end up clogged
somewhere in the bowels of the Internet *outside* any OA archive, are
not an OA-specific problem.

The urgent, current OA problem is deposit, not withdrawal.

Stevan Harnad
Received on Sat Jan 07 2006 - 18:47:57 GMT