Re: Stop fighting the inevitable - and free funds for openaccess!

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 13:49:18 +0000 (GMT)

    OA IS NOT ABOUT FREEING FUNDS (FOR OA PUBLISHING)
    IT IS ABOUT FREEING RESEARCH FINDINGS, FOR RESEARCHERS

Some well-meaning OA advocates are again promulgating nonsense, as usual.
What is inevitable (and optimal) is freeing research, not funds!

OA is not about funding OA (Gold) publishing (nor about publishing itself,
particularly).

It is about researchers providing online access to their peer-reviewed
findings for those researchers webwide who cannot afford paid access.

OA can and will be provided by researcher self-archiving (Green),
mandated by the research community, by and for itself. The outcome will
(easily and naturally) be adapted to by publishing, if need be. The rest
is all idle, pre-emptive speculation, aired ad nauseam for years now,
with no new arguments or evidence.

The publishing community has next to nothing to do with the immediate
reachability of OA by and for the research community (although publishers'
blessing -- by going Green -- is of course always welcome: all APS
journals are Green; possibly all AIP journals?); and of course the
increasingly desperate (and disreputable) lobbying by some publishers
against Green OA mandates will not only fail, but will leave their
proponents with egg on their face (openly) as in the current, silly,
"Pit-Bull" furor...

Stevan Harnad

On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, Marc Brodsky wrote:

> There seems to be some misunderstanding of publisher positions on
> open access. Many publishers are trying, even embracing real open
> access options for authors within the environment of high
> quality, highly read journals. For example, we at the American
> Institute of Physics offer Author Select, an open access option,
> for all our journals. We even lowered fees last this year
> crossing below the raised fees of some ardent OA advocates.
>
> The real issue is whether governments should create unfunded
> mandates that force business models such as 6 or 12 month limits
> on those who have a different publishing model.
>
> Let the market, not the government, decide what authors and
> readers want and need. Once the government decides, if things do
> not work out, we are really stuck.
>
> Marc
>
> >>> Heather Morrison <heatherm_at_eln.bc.ca> 1/25/2007 7:17 PM >>>
>
> There are some in the publishing community who are spending
> significant sums fighting open access - for example, Nature
> recently reported that AAP spent $300,000 - $500,000 in 2006, as
> reported in their article, PR's "pitbull" takes on open access -
> January 25, 2007.
>
> Funds that are currently being spent fighting open access are
> funds that are not really needed for publishing per se, and so it
> is reasonable to ask, what might be accomplished if funds were
> redirected from fighting open access, to implementing OA?
>
> [SNIP]
>
> Heather G. Morrison
>
>
Received on Sat Jan 27 2007 - 15:38:07 GMT