On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Jan Velterop wrote:
> Is this really what was asked: "Are you FOR or AGAINST open access to
> research results?" If that is so, the result is dismal. It means that 14%
> of the self-archiving mandate's specific target constituency is *against*
> open access!
No, what was asked was not whether whether EC fundees are for or against
OA but whether they are for or against EC's A1 OA Self-Archiving Mandate:
RECOMMENDATION A1. GUARANTEE PUBLIC ACCESS TO PUBLICLY-FUNDED RESEARCH
RESULTS SHORTLY AFTER PUBLICATION
Establish a Europea policy mandating published articles arising
from EC-funded research to be available after a given time period
in open access archives,
Result: 86% FOR, 14% AGAINST.
> I guess that the question FOR or AGAINST the principle of open access, if
> asked of publishers, would get you a similar outcome and quite probably a
> better one (fewer than 14% against).
It is not clear why anyone would want to ask *publishers* what research
funders should ask their fundees to do as a condition of receiving
public funding, but a hint is available from yesterday's STM Publishers'
"Brussels Declaration" (from some publishers curiously privy to the
outcome of the EC conference before the outcome has yet been announced
by the EC):
http://www.stm-assoc.org/press-releases/2007.02%20Brussels%20Declaration%20Press%20Release%20130207.pdf
That Declaration only has 43 signatures, So perhaps Jan is right that many
publishers are for EC A1.
But here is Jan Velterop himself stating his own view (and presumably
that of his employer: Springer Verlag) about whether or not EC A1 should
be adopted:
> a mandate for open access per se is fine, but a mandate for subversive
> self-archiving is not if it comes instead of a constructive dialogue
> approach to some form of economically sustainable open access publishing.
Translation: Mandating OA publishing ("Gold OA") is fine; mandating OA
self-archiving ("Green OA") is not fine.
More detailed translation: Springer has an "Open Choice" option: Pay
our asking price for OA Gold, and you get OA. To mandate that researchers
pay that (and to give them the money to do so), is fine.
But to mandate that researchers self-archive what research libraries the
world over are already paying for, dearly, via subscriptions, is not fine,
but "subversive." (It will destroy the revenues that pay for publication
by making subscriptions unsustainable.)
Fine; we have heard that dire interpretation of the "Subversive Proposal"
http://www.arl.org/sc/subversive/
before, many, many times, but not a shred of evidence in nearly a decade
and a half that self-archiving does anything other than provide OA and
enhance research usage and impact.
Berners-Lee, T., De Roure, D., Harnad, S. and Shadbolt, N. (2005)
Journal publishing and author self-archiving: Peaceful Co-Existence
and Fruitful Collaboration.
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11160/
What Jan does not say is where researchers are supposed to find the money to
pay for Gold OA today, while the money to pay for it is still all tied up in
subscriptions. Are their research funders supposed to redirect the requisite
money from (already scarce) research funds?
Or might "subversive self-archiving mandates," today, provide (Green)
OA and its benefits, today -- and redirect *subscription funds* toward
paying for OA Gold if and when it should ever prove to make subscriptions
unsustainable?
Stevan Harnad
Received on Thu Feb 15 2007 - 07:18:49 GMT