Stevan, all -
As usual I am with you almost all the way. I, too, hope (I am not sure I believe - see how publishers jacked-up subscription costs once they had the market) gold will reduce costs eventually.
The problem is that - right now and with currently published gold costs - a productive institution may well find itself paying ~ 3 times its current library subscriptions.
I support strongly (and have for some years) your call for green now, mandated by funders and institutions and with easy-to-use, low effort input systems (fewer keystrokes). Apart from the obvious advantages, green has one further advantage; if publishers do not go for gold at least we have open access availability in green and if publishers do go for gold having parallel green will 'keep them honest'.
K
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-----Original Message-----
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: 29 April 2007 15:50
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Cure Gold Fever With Green Deposits
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 - 18:54:36 BST