Re: The Mandate of Open Access Institutional Repository Managers

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2010 06:55:49 -0400

On 2010-08-05, at 6:28 AM, Talat Chaudhri wrote:

      Please consider putting this statement in your email signature. It's
      brief, to the point, and it would save everybody lots of time
      re-reading different versions thereof ;-)

            My main point is so simple that it can be summarised in
            a single sentence: "Institutions and funders should
            mandate green OA and they should on no account promote
            or fund gold OA until and unless they have first
            mandated green OA." (That's it; all the rest is in the
            reasons and the evidence on which that stern-sounding
            injunction is based.)


Talat, thanks for the helpful suggestion.

You might not be surprised to hear that the thought of doing something like that
has occurred to me many times across the many years too.  It would certainly
save me a lot of time and trouble.

The problem is that my detailed quote/comment responses are to postings and
positions that have not read -- or not understood -- any version thereof.

And often the detailed quote/comments are not enough to generate understanding
(yes, understanding, not acquiescence), at least not in my direct addressee.

The reason is that the point, for what it's worth, is in the reasons and
evidence, not the punchline.

But even the reasons and evidence are simple, so it remains a real puzzler,
historically, why something so simple is taking so long to understand.

By the way, not to be shrill about it, but I don't doubt that the opponents of
OA would be happy if the proponents of OA just reduced their statements to a
one-line signature too, rather than reasoning, evidence, critiques, rebuttals.
Then they could keep on ignoring or dismissing the one-liner without risk of
having to think more carefully.

Here we are all proponents of OA, and the disagreement is about practical
strategy, not about the desirability in principle.

And again, Talat, not a hint of contending with the substance of my points in
your own response: Just a desire to save yourself a click to delete again
without another thought. 

There is a much simpler solution for that.

Best wishes,

Stevan
Received on Thu Aug 05 2010 - 11:56:16 BST