-- Fred Spilhaus Executive Director, AGU 2000 Florida Avenue NW Washington DC 20009 USA Phone: +1 202 777 7510 Fax: +1 202 328 0566 E-mail FSpilhaus_at_AGU.org To see what AGU is doing go to http://www.AGU.org On 3/30/2007 8:25 AM, Stevan Harnad wrote: > ** Apologies for Cross-Posting ** > > The following exchange is posted with permission: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:21:48 +0100 (BST) > From: Stevan Harnad <harnad --- ecs.soton.ac.uk> > To: Andrew A. Adams <A.A.Adams --- reading.ac.uk> > Subject: Re: Scholarly Society Publishers > > On Fri, 30 Mar 2007, Andrew A. Adams wrote: > >> Dear Stevan, >> >> On the subject of Scholarly Society Publishers, >> you agree that it is likely that the heads of scholarly >> societies will be lining up alongside the commercial publishers in lobbying >> against OA mandates in the US. Since most scholarly societies are >> semi-democratic bodies, we need to try to mobilise OA advocates to use those >> democratic avenues to transform the Scholarly Societies into lobbyists for >> instead of lobbyists against, OA. Of course, as always, this requires the >> time of OA advocates. >> >> I will have a think about how we can support each other in these efforts >> (your slides on OA are one example of how we can support each other and by >> sharing, reduce the burden on each of us), and then possibly put a message on >> the general list with suggestions, the first of which is noting that >> "decisions are made by those who turn up" and suggesting that at minimum OA >> advocates need to make the time to attend their scholarly societies' AGMs, >> and preferably to stand for election as officers of the societies on a >> platform of OA advocacy (and business change to secure the future of the >> societies IF Green OA were to undermine their publishing income). > > Dear Andrew, > > You are right that scholarly society members need to be specially > mobilised by OA advocates now, to get them aware and on-side. I think > David Prosser and Fred Friend in the UK and Heather Joseph and Peter > Suber in the US are in the best position to guide a systematic campaign > to mobilise support for EC OA and FRPAA from the society memberships. > Many of the societies have signed the EU or US petitions (although obviously > the most important membership targets are those whose officers have > *not* signed):. > > http://www.ec-petition.eu/index.php?p=signatories&show_institute=1 > http://www.publicaccesstoresearch.org/cgi-bin/petition.pl?action=view&type=organization > > The specific goal would be to inform members about the great likelihood that > their own officers will be actively lobbying against Green OA mandates > (FRPAA and EC A1), and hence the need to make the will of the grassroots > membership known, heard and felt. > > The core issue is that Scholarly Society officers are taking exactly the > same stance as commercial publishers (either opposing OA altogether, or > opposing the OA Green Mandates that are designed to reach OA), but they > are doing so in the name of protecting the society's publishing revenue > streams for the sake of the society's "good works" (which consist of > funding meetings, scholarships and lobbying) -- and they are doing so > in the name of their memberships, without consultation, disclosure, > or answerability. > > Trojan Horse from American Chemical Society: Caveat Emptor > http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/213-guid.html > > Not a Proud Day in the Annals of the Royal Society > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/subject.html#4931 > > Open Letter from Fellows of the Royal Society > http://www.frsopenletter.org/ > > A real tragedy > http://poynder.blogspot.com/2005/12/real-tragedy.html > > The membership has to be very clearly informed of this, and of the fact > that renouncing OA in favour of protecting their society's publishing > revenue streams in order to ensure that they can continue to subsidise > meetings, scholarships and lobbying would amount to the individual > members themselves agreeing to subsidise meetings, scholarships and > lobbying with their own lost daily research impact and income, lost > because would-be users of their work are being denied access to their > work because their institutions cannot afford subscription access to it > (the supplementary access that the Green OA Mandates are specifically > meant to provide). > > The findings on the way self-archiving doubles research usage and impact > in all fields should be made very clearly known to the membership, so > they fully understand and appreciate the central causal contingency that > is actually at issue in all of this: > > Bibliography of Findings on the Open Access Impact Advantage > http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html > > Houghton, J. & Sheehan, P. (2006) The Economic Impact of Enhanced > Access to Research Findings. Centre for Strategic Economic Studies > Victoria University > http://www.cfses.com/documents/wp23.pdf > > Harnad, S. (2005) Making the case for web-based > self-archiving. Research Money 19 (16). > http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11534/01/researchmoney.html > http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/18-guid.html > > The solution is very simple: Scholarly society meetings, scholarships and > lobbying should sustain themselves in other ways in the OA era, rather > than by reducing members' research impact. Reducing research access > is the exact opposite of the purpose of a scholarly society. Raising > the registration fee for meetings, and adjusting membership fees to the > level agreed upon for the funding of scholarships and lobbying makes the > system far more open and answerable to the real needs of the membership. > > (I am certain that members will be appalled once the publishing books are > opened and they see how small a proportion of their society's publishing > profits is actually being used for these good works: The books will show > that those scholarly societies that have any sizeable publishing profits > to speak of tend to use them, like all other publishers, to increase > their publishing division's size, staff and perquisites, not to fund > "good works." The American Chemical Society is the prime example of this. > Publishing has become a state-within-a-state in the profitable societies, > and that is why they sound so much like commercial publishers, differing > only in the fact that they can add a specious note of self-righteousness > to their resistance to OA, citing their "good works." The remedy, of > course, is to remind the membership of the actual mandate of scholarly > societies, which is to promote the scholarship, not to profit from > limiting it.) > > Moreover, a long period of peaceful coexistence between subscription > revenues and Green OA self-archiving mandates is still ahead of us, > because it takes time for the mandates to take effect, with OA growing > anarchically across all journals, not individually, journal by journal. > Even in fields that have had 100% Green OA for years now -- notably the > American Physical Society and the Institute of Physics, which have both > attested to this publicly -- Green OA self-archiving has not yet produced > any detectable decline in subscription revenues. > > 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/ > > Swan, A. (2005) Open access self-archiving: An Introduction. > Technical Report, JISC, HEFCE. > http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11006/ > > 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 journal and funds exist > 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 Sun Apr 01 2007 - 00:00:07 BST
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