On Sun, 10 Dec 2006, Dana Roth wrote:
> What [AIP] are saying is that "generating and protecting their current
> revenue streams and cost-recovery model" is important until a model that
> fully meets the needs of all scientists is available.
And the reply was:
(1) The self-archiving mandates do not mandate a new model, they
mandate self-archiving.
(2) There is as yet no evidence at all of any subscription revenue loss
whatsoever as a result of self-archiving (and particularly in physics,
where it has been going on the longest, with some fields at or near 100%
self-archiving for years now):
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11006/
(3) If and when self-archiving should ever cause subscription revenue loss,
journals can and will adapt with a new "model," in rather obvious ways
that have been described many times before:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm
(4) Until then, the immediate "needs of scientists" are for access and
impact, not for models.
> While "self-archiving mandates ... are about maximizing the access,
> usage and impact of publicly funded research" they may not meet the
> needs of serious research scientists, and over time may well undermine
> dissemination of peer-reviewed, readable, and archived research results.
It would be very useful if Dana would point out exactly how making all
peer-reviewed research freely available online to all its would-be users
(rather than just to those whose institutions can afford to subscribe to the
journal in which it appeared) would "not meet the needs of serious
research scientists."
As to the hypothesis that "over time [this] may well undermine
dissemination of peer-reviewed, readable, and archived research results":
I (and many others) would be quite interested to see the evidence about
whether -- and if so when -- this will happen. Those with a direct
interest in showing that this will indeed happen have had notable
difficulty in coming up with any supporting data to that effect:
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/162-guid.html
But, to repeat: If and when self-archiving should ever cause subscription
revenue loss, journals can and will adapt with a new "model," in rather
obvious ways that have been described many times before. Right now,
however, the priority (already long overdue) is 100% Open Access.
> I fully agree with Peter Suber in that "The current method is
> a reasonable compromise: a period of exclusivity for the publisher
> followed by free online access for the public."
My reading of Peter Suber was that he too was *supporting* self-archiving
mandates, against AIP's opposition to them. (It would be useful to hear
where Dana stands on the proposed FRPAA self-archiving mandate and the
proposed upgrading of the (failed) NIH self-archiving policy to a mandate
as well.)
Moreover, although Peter was here referring to embargoes, I don't think
he is any more enamoured of them than I (or any other believers in OA
are): We both support the ID/OA mandate (immediate deposit, optional
access-setting), which transfers the weight of any embargo from the
deposit of the full text (which must be immediate upon acceptance for
publication) to the time at which access is set as Open Access rather than
Closed Access. Meanwhile, the EMAIL EPRINT button, already implemented for
EPrints and DSpace Institutional Repositories, can fulfil researchers'
immediate usage needs in a less than optimal but serviceable way until
nature takes its course:
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
> In case no one has noticed, the ACS allows authors to post URLs for
> their articles, which are limited to 50 downloads during the first year
> after publication, and are essentially Open Access after the first year.
ACS's generous offer was duly noticed in 2004 when it was made, but alas
the shortfall of access and impact (in chemistry as well as other fields)
is not limited to 50 accesses per article in the first year:
http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4091.html
> It is unfortunate that the 'true believer' doesn't recognize possible
> dangers in sudden change.
*Sudden* change? After at least 12 sluggish years that have seen the dot-coms
come and go? Glacial time or the heat death of the universe come sooner to mind!
http://www.arl.org/sc/subversive/
Stevan Harnad
Received on Mon Dec 11 2006 - 03:18:39 GMT