Cure Gold Fever With Green Deposits

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 15:49:48 +0100

Below is the summary of a reply to Matt Hodgkinson's posting in his journaloloblog:

    "Archivangelism: Has the Means Become the End?"
    http://journalology.blogspot.com/2007/04/archivangelism-has-means-become-end.html

My full, linked reply is at:
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/236-guid.html

    SUMMARY:

    (1) The Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access (ID/OA) Mandate is a
    compromise deliberately designed to end deadlocks delaying the
    adoption of self-archiving mandates, by making publisher copyright
    policies or embargoes moot. It is not a substitute for OA but a
    an accelerator toward OA.

    (2) There is no discovery problem with articles that have been
    deposited in OAI-compliant Institutional Repositories (IRs). The
    discovery problem is with the articles that have not been deposited.

    (3) I don't criticise those who say Gold OA will lower publication
    costs. (I think it will too, eventually.) I criticise those who keep
    dwelling on Gold OA and costs while usage and impact continues to
    be lost and Green OA mandates (or ID/OA) can put an end to it, once
    and for all, now.

    (4) CERN could have done a far greater service for other disciplines
    and for the growth of OA if it had put its weight and energy behind
    promoting its own own Green OA policy as a model worldwide, instead
    of diverting attention and energy to the needless and premature
    endgame of Gold OA within its own subfields.

    (5) Paying for Gold OA in a hybrid-Gold journal is indeed
    double-payment while subscriptions are still paying all publication
    costs.

    (6) I criticise depositing in CRs instead of depositing in
    Institutional Repositories (IRs), especially mandating deposit in
    CRs instead of in IRs.

    (7) I have no wish to vye for priority for the term "open
    access". I used "free online access" for years without feeling any
    pressing need for a more formal term of art.

    (8) Yes I (and no doubt others too, independently) mooted the notion
    of journals funded by means other than the subscription model (later
    to become Gold OA) in 1997 and even earlier (1994); but I never for
    a microsecond thought Gold OA would come before Green OA. And it
    hasn't; nor will it.

Stevan Harnad
Received on Sun Apr 29 2007 - 16:11:35 BST

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