On Fri, 22 Feb 2008, Adam Hodgkin wrote:
> Am I the only reader of this list who finds the comparison with the
> abolition
> of slavery frankly ridiculous?
No, you're not the only one. Here's what I wrote the first time this
shrill analogy was made (almost exactly a year ago):
"Pit-bull tactics are a discredit to both sides," he noted. "The
slavery/abolition analogy is tasteless and totally unjustified. If
OA proponents wish to help OA, let them promote OA rather than vilify
publishers."
http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6418750.html
And here it is again, for this year's version:
Workman, Blame Not Thy Tools
Stevan Harnad Thu, 2008-02-21 05:08.
http://www.plos.org/cms/node/204
"The slavery analogy is rather too severe. So are the analogies
with the pharmaceutical, oil and tobacco industry that have been
used now and then. The industrial lobbying and FUD against OA has
been shrill and shifty, but not quite sinister or inhumane. Mostly,
it has been transparently hyperbolic, ineffectual, and even pathetic,
and prominently exposed as such. After all, the publisher lobbying
and FUD have all failed, resoundingly (and over 60% of journals have
gone Green -- and 15% of them Gold -- of their own accord).
"And let's not forget that there were other culpable parties in the
far too slow transition to the optimal and inevitable, most prominent
among them being the researchers themselves, the very ones who create
this peculiar author give-away literature, written only for research
impact rather than royalty income. Historians will have to note that
in the end it required mandates from their institutions and funders
to induce researchers at long last to do what was fully within their
reach all along, and in their own best interests, as well as in
those of their institutions, their funders, the vast R&D industry,
and the tax-paying public that supports their research..."
Stevan Harnad
AMERICAN SCIENTIST OPEN ACCESS FORUM:
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.h
tml
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/
UNIVERSITIES and RESEARCH FUNDERS:
If you have adopted or plan to adopt a policy of providing Open Access
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OPEN-ACCESS-PROVISION POLICY:
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OR
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Received on Fri Feb 22 2008 - 10:55:54 GMT