Sally
They could have meant that they used a famous search engine which
threw up the article's metadata (including journal title) high in the
ranked list, and then knowing that their Library held the journal in
its subscriptions, proceeded to the Library website to download the
published version. What else indeed? I'm even inclined to do this
myself, but it does not mean it is ideal. It wastes my time to a
small extent.
Almost all scientists these days start a search with a search engine
if they are not following references or backtracking citations, and
they certainly don't walk even 5 minutes to a print library. If it is
not online (free or pre-paid), it is not available (except for known
ancient materials). Print libraries these days are mostly populated
by undergraduate students. This seems to be universal, but is
certainly the case at the University of Tasmania.
Arthur Sale
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum
[mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG]
On Behalf Of Sally Morris (Morris Associates)
Sent: Tuesday, 20 January 2009 9:53 PM
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: [AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM] STM Publisher
Briefing on Institution Repository Deposit Mandates
I would assume that those who said they never accessed self-archived
versions, even when they had no access to the print version, must
have meant that they never even tried to do so (for a variety of
interesting reasons, which they listed). What else could they
possibly mean?
Sally
Sally Morris
Partner, Morris Associates - Publishing Consultancy
South House, The Street
Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
Tel: +44(0)1903 871286
Fax: +44(0)8701 202806
Email: sally_at_morris-assocs.demon.co.uk
____________________________________________________________________________
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum
[mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG]
On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: 19 January 2009 23:49
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: STM Publisher Briefing on Institution Repository Deposit
Mandates
On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Sally Morris (Morris Associates)
<sally_at_morris-assocs.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Sue Thorn and I will shortly be publishing a report of a
research
study on the attitudes and behaviour of 1368 members of
UK-based
learned societies in the life sciences.
72.5% said they never used self-archived articles when
they had
access to the published version;
This makes sense. The self-archived versions are supplements, for
those who don't have subscription access.
3% did so whenever possible,
10% sometimes and 14% rarely. When they did not have
access to
the published version, 53% still never accessed the
self-archived
version;
This is an odd category: Wouldn't one have to know what percentage of
those articles -- to which these respondents did not have
subscription access -- in fact had self-archived versions at all?
(The global baseline for spontaneous self-archiving is around 15%;
see, for
example
http://elpub.scix.net/data/works/att/178_elpub2008.content.pdf)
The way it is stated above, it sounds as if the authors knew there
was a self-archived version, but chose not to use it. I would
strongly doubt that...
16% did so whenever possible,
That 16% sounds awfully close to the baseline 15% where it *is*
possible, because the self-archived supplement exists. In that case,
the right description would be that 100% did so. (But I rather
suspect the questions were again posed in such an ambiguous way that
it is impossible to sort any of this out.)
16% sometimes and 15%
rarely. However, 13% of references were not in fact to
self-archiving repositories - they included Athens, Ovid,
Science
Direct and ISI Web of Science/Web of Knowledge.
To get responses on self-archived content, you have to very carefully
explain to your respondents what is and is not meant by self-archived
content: Free online versions, not those you *or your institution*
have to pay subscription tolls to access.
Stevan Harnad
Received on Wed Jan 21 2009 - 02:26:42 GMT