Re: Convergent IR Deposit Mandates vs. Divergent CR Deposit Mandates

From: (wrong string) édon Jean-Claude <jean.claude.guedon_at_UMONTREAL.CA>
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:06:12 -0400

A quick reply to Alma, especially as I see that we are beginning to - should I use the word? - converge... :-)


-----Original Message-----
American Scientist Open Access Forum on behalf of Alma Swan
Sat 7/26/2008 1:51 AM


Good point, except that in the institutions with most self-archiving going
on, the library is not doing it, the authors are. Deduction: if you want to
have a sustainable, filling IR, the responsibility for deposit lies with the
authors.

To follow this completely, I would need the empirical evidence. Has anyone done this kind of analysis? I am interested.

[snip]

I think the 'berating' is actually a style thing. Think of it as 'putting
the case for a better model'.

I would respond to this by quoting Buffon: "Le style, c'est l'homme"... There are styles of behaviour that become downright counter-productive. Hint. Hint.

[snip]

> Yes, perhaps things should work this way, but they do not in
> reality. How long are we going to hit our heads agains walls,
> acting as if thy were not there... Better go on with what we
> have and build together from there.

But the point above was that RePEc *is* working, even in reality.

I should have written: "...perhaps things should work this way, but they do not *always* do. *RePEC is a nice model to have, but we must work with what we have, however imperfect.*

It is like a chess game where you discover you made a bad opening. You are stuck with it and try to recover. You do not ask to start the game over. The "minor changes" Harnad asks of NIH are probably huge when seen from the inner logic og an enormous institution like NIH. We got the mandate after years of battles and its lack of perfection is a result of the path followed politically to achieve. Now, of course, we could lobby Congress in the US ti undo that law and pass a better one. Any volunteer?

The more general point of my initial comment was that for a long time it did
feel as though we were beating our heads on a brick wall but now a
noticeable change is happening - universities are beginning to understand
what it's all about. They ARE receptive now and eager to find out what to do
and how to do it. Now they want to make their policies, and what should be
ultra-simple for a university policy can become far more complex because of
having to take existing funder-mandates-into-central-repositories into
account. As Stevan would say (sort of) divergence, rather than convergence,
reigns. Or, where we could have had one single, sparkling, clear flowing
stream, we now have a couple of muddy ponds. The right sort of
hydroengineering can sort that out, one hopes.

I am not convinced that things are now "far more complex" for universities when "they get it". What a phrase like "getting it" means in reality is that a fraction of the brass understands the arguments and the stakes and sttarts exerting political pressure in that direction. The presence of more than one model complicates the picture and presumably slows down the process but, regrettable as it may seem, this is what humanity is all about. It is called "politics" by the way and it is always messy and impure. However, impurity is not a reason to start working for OA so long as we do not confuse the quest for purity with the quest for OA.

> Let me repeat my (borrowed) mantra: rough consensus and
> working code. That is how the Internet beat X.25 and all the
> telcos of the world.

True, and I have no doubt we are getting there, but there's no harm in
putting a bit of effort into striving for the best possible outcome, rather
than relaxing and leaving things to muddle along.

I never advocated making thins muddle along. My cultural background, for better of for worse, is far too Cartesian... :-) But between muddling through in a sleepwalkin way and seeking the pure path to OA there exists a wide margin. I do not want to compromise the objectives of OA in any way (including, incidentally, the computational openness of digital documents that Cliff Lynch wisely calls for) but I will accept travelling on any road that brings me closer to the goal.

Best,

Jean-Claude

Alma Swan
Key Perspectives Ltd
Truro, UK
Received on Sat Jul 26 2008 - 14:43:26 BST