On Wed, 28 Jun 2006, Richard Feinman wrote:
> I don't understand self-archiving.
Please let me explain it to you: It is researchers making the final
refereed drafts of their own published articles freely accessible on the
web for those would-be users who cannot afford access to the publisher's
version.
Self-Archiving FAQ
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
> Isn't that another bizarre practice of having the author assume a task
> which should be done by the publisher.
Not in the least. The publisher implements the peer review, performs the
copy-editing, markup, composition, printing and distribution, in print
and on paper. In exchange, he receives subscription revenue. It is not
the publisher's task to provide access to those who cannot afford his
product. If the author wants those potential users to have access too,
he needs to provide it. But all it costs is a few minutes and keystrokes
per paper, and what it brings is substantially more usage and impact:
Carr, L. and Harnad, S. (2005) Keystroke Economy: A Study of the
Time and Effort Involved in Self-Archiving.
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10688/
Bibliography of Findings on the Open Access Impact Advantage
http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html
> Does it not highlight the intent of publishers to reduce access to the
> author's article. Are they not saying: sure we'll publish it but if you
> want everybody to be able to read it you have to take care of that.
Nothing of the sort. The head-shaker is not that publishers won't do it for authors.
(It's more than enough if publishers simply give author self-archiving their green
light, as the publishers of 94% of journals already do -- and if they do not lobby
against research-funder self-archiving mandates.)
http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php
The real head-shaker is that, despite the substantial benefits to them, only 15% of
researchers self-archive spontaneously. This is why self-archiving mandates were
needed. Fortunately, the mandates are coming, at long last:
Swan, A. (2005) Open access self-archiving: An Introduction. Technical
Report, JISC.
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11006/
UK (RCUK):
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/access/
EC:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publication-study_en.pdf
US (FRPAA):
http://cornyn.senate.gov/doc_archive/05-02-2006_COE06461_xml.pdf
Stevan Harnad
AMERICAN SCIENTIST OPEN ACCESS FORUM:
A complete Hypermail archive of the ongoing discussion of providing
open access to the peer-reviewed research literature online (1998-2005)
is available at:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/
To join or leave the Forum or change your subscription address:
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
Post discussion to:
american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org
UNIVERSITIES: If you have adopted or plan to adopt an institutional
policy of providing Open Access to your own research article output,
please describe your policy at:
http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
UNIFIED DUAL OPEN-ACCESS-PROVISION POLICY:
BOAI-1 ("green"): Publish your article in a suitable toll-access journal
http://romeo.eprints.org/
OR
BOAI-2 ("gold"): Publish your article in a open-access journal if/when
a suitable one exists.
http://www.doaj.org/
AND
in BOTH cases self-archive a supplementary version of your article
in your institutional repository.
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
http://archives.eprints.org/
http://openaccess.eprints.org/
Received on Thu Jun 29 2006 - 03:46:46 BST