Re: Open Choice is a Trojan Horse for Open Access Mandates

[David Goodman <dgoodman@Princeton.EDU>]

Dear Stevan,

This high-energy physics group of journals has for a long time 
been the primary evidence you have been quoting to show that 
self-archiving will not harm academic journals. Therefore, it is 
understandable that you should express dismay at these very same 
titles adopting open access publishing instead.

Among the publishers' many motivations might even have been the 
anticipation that the continuing academic subscriptions to these 
titles might be vulnerable to budget pressure. Considering that 
some of them have subscription numbers in the very low hundreds, 
the possibility of any further loss might reasonably have been 
seen as catastrophic.

Until scientists can publish in OA journals-- like these will 
be--then of course they have the obligation to self- archive, 
just as physicists have been doing. The physicists were ahead of 
other fields in self-archiving, and in developing themselves and 
then using a centralized archive, and they are now continuing to 
lead in the use of OA publishing.  This is a reasonable guide for 
other subjects to follow:

Develop self-archiving by any available means, and then 
centralized self-archiving in an system the quality of arXiv, and 
then OA journals. We need coordinated effort at each part. I 
think that the development of at least basic self-archiving 
remains an urgent task, and you are in no way to blame for 
continuing to develop that particular method. Even the view that 
this ought to be done first is justifiable in the many fields 
that still need it.

As for the view that only self-archiving ought to be pursued, I 
can recall no other person who has ever taken that position.

David Goodman, Ph.D., M.L.S.
previously:
Bibliographer and Research Librarian
Princeton University Library

dgoodman@princeton.edu


----- Original Message -----
From: Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Monday, March 12, 2007 9:58 pm
Subject: Re: Open Choice is a Trojan Horse for Open Access Mandates
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu

> On Sat, 10 Mar 2007, Jan Velterop wrote:
>
>> The Howard Hughes deal is *not* a setback for open access, even
>> if it is not the greatest imaginable step forwards perhaps.
>
> It is not a setback for the minuscule number of articles for
> which HHMI will finance paid (Gold) OA. It is a setback for all
> the other articles that could be made (Green) OA through mandated
> author self-archiving, for free, while subscriptions are still
> continuing to pay the publication costs.
>
> It is not only a waste of money, but it plays into the hands of
> those who are trying to delay or derail Green self-archiving
> mandates at all costs.
>
>> To knock the HHMI for getting into this deal is short-sighted.
>
> It is HHMI that is being short-sighted (and gullible). HHMI ought
> instead simply to mandate Green OA self-archiving, and leave it
> at that.
>
>> And subject lines like 'Trojan Horse' with their insidious
>> negativity raise the suspicion that the agenda of some list
>> participants is not really 'open access', but a desire to get
>> rid of publishers or of the notion that publishing, including
>> open access publishing, actually costs money.
>
> Nonsense. Open Choice is a Trojan Horse if it is taken as a
> pretext for paying for Gold OA instead of mandating Green OA. No
> one is trying to get rid of publishers. We are trying to get rid
> of access-barriers. Green OA does that. And while subscriptions
> are still being (amply) paid for, no one is unaware of the fact
> that publishing costs money. What is urgently needed today is not
> money to pay for Gold OA, but mandates to provide Green OA.

[SNIP]