Re: Get the Institutional Repository Managers Out of the Decision Loop

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 23:55:54 +0100

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007, Hubbard Bill wrote:

> [Re: SHERPA-Romeo]
> to ignore a clause in a contract because we don't agree
> with it, is to misrepresent the publishers' contract and
> potentially mislead authors and administrators.

To omit irrelevant details is to omit irrelevant details, not to
misrepresent or mislead.

When I consult Romeo I want to know (1) which journals endorse immediate
OA deposit of my postprint, (2) which of the rest of the journals endorse
immediate OA deposit of my preprint, and (3) which journals are left
over after that. To omit or misrepresent that critical information would
indeed mislead authors and administrators. I could also make a case
for the usefulness of knowing (4) the length of the postprint embargo,
if any, for the journals in (2) and (3).

But to omit most of the other conditions highlighted in SHERPA-Romeo
would neither misrepresent nor mislead: it would focus and instruct.
That's what all filtering out of irrelevant and distracting noise does.

The links to the publisher's policy sites can supply details for those
who seek it. SHERPA-Romeo does not perform a service when it serves
as a megaphone for "contractual clauses" such as "You may deposit on
your institutional website but not in your institutional repository"
(or vice versa). It is just amplifying noise.

Stay agnostic on the nonsense, and catalogue only the sense.

> Re: OpenDOAR:
> [T]he purpose and the use of the OpenDOAR Policy Tools [is] to
> create policies for the IRs themselves to house on their sites,
> for harvesting by service providers and other interested parties
> that need formal permissions.

It is not clear to me why, when our cupboards are bare (the IRs are mostly
empty) we are trying to be holier than the billions of well-laden websites
that google blithely harvests every night, with formal permission neither
asked nor given. Offering IRs a service for restricting harvester access
would make sense if content were abundant and our problem was instead
harvesting abuses. But the situation is quite the reverse: too little
content and too little harvesting.

But Bill, perhaps I have misunderstood: If the purpose of the Policy Tools
is to provide a green light for shy harvesters that would otherwise not
dare to harvest, then it should only consist of positive green lights,
for those IRs that give formal permission to these shy harvesters. Is
that what it is?

Stevan Harnad
Received on Wed Jun 13 2007 - 02:05:19 BST