Re: Green Angels and OA Extremists

From: Steve Hitchcock <sh94r_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 18:31:30 +0000

At 15:47 02/12/2008, Michael Eisen wrote:
> Les Carr wrote:
> > HAVING SAID THAT, the library is in no way adverse to finding
> > mechanisms that assist individuals and ease their tasks, and I guess
> > that Elsevier can have no objections to that either! How about a
> > notification email to be sent to authors of "In Press" papers that
> > contains a "Deposit this paper" button that initiates the user's
> > deposit workflow on the ScienceDirect Submitted Manuscript PDF.
>
> You guys are such suckers. OF COURSE Elsevier can have objections to
> libraries assisting individuals in self-archiving their work, because
> Elsevier does not want self archiving to succeed! What do they have to
> do to actually prove this to you? Stevan, Les and others seem to think
> that Karen Hunter's recent email was some kind of bureaucratic error,
> rather than realize it for what it clearly is - a direct statement
> from Elsevier that they do not want self-archiving to actually take off.

This is not borne out by the evidence nor, intuitively, is it likely
to be in the minds of publishers like Elsevier. What the TA
publishers want to do is moderate the pace of change towards OA to
suit them. Hence the resistance to mandates rather than to green
self-archiving. On this basis then Jean-Claude's assessment that
publishers would like to keep self-archiving 'at some artisanal,
confusing level' is closer to the truth. Yes it is clever, and as
Jean-Claude would recognise, has characterized publisher strategies
throughout the transition from print to electronic journals, not just
the current phase of the transition to OA, always moving just enough
to delay the revolution. But that is not the same as opposing OA.

To pick up on Jean-Claude's second point, that green and gold should
unite in a pincer movement, yes of course both are unambiguously for
full OA, but it's not quite so simple. If OA is about providing
access to published peer reviewed papers, then we have to recognise
that while gold OA is about publication, green OA is a pivot with
other published sources. Therefore TA publishers have an interest in
reaching an accommodation on green OA, whereas gold OA is in
competition with TA publishers. That, I suspect, is the reason that
Michael, as an active proponent of gold OA, wishes to draw a clear
line that publishers such as Elsevier oppose OA when the reality is
not so clear.

Steve Hitchcock
IAM Group, School of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
Email: sh94r_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 7698 Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865

> It's a ploy (an apparently successful ploy) on their part to
> diffuse moves towards effective universal open access by a) making
> them seem like good guys and b) fostering the illusion that we can
> have universal green OA without altering the economics of publishing.
>
> And Stevan, rather than the typical retort about how green OA can be
> achieved now, with a few keystrokes, can you please instead explain
> how the policy statement from your friends at Elsevier does not
> indicate that they are really opposed to real OA.
Received on Wed Dec 03 2008 - 19:45:01 GMT