Re: Against Conflating OA Self-Archiving With Preservation-Archiving

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

     Prior Amsci Topic Thread:
     "Against Conflating OA Self-Archiving With Preservation-Archiving"
     http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5500.html

On Tue, 14 Aug 2007, Peter Hirtle wrote:

> When I speak of "archives"... it is as an archivist.
> For my community, a term like "self-archiving" is an oxymoron -
I think we need not be that rigid with the word "archiving." It 
really just means storing. The relevant thing for OA is that 
self-archiving provides free online access, not that the deposit 
is being preserved.

(It *is* being preserved, too, but that is not the point: We are 
talking about authors' final accepted drafts, not the publisher's 
PDF or the paper edition: the latter is the one that 
preservationists should be preoccupied with. The self-archived 
version is a supplement, not a substitute.)

> Self-archiving and open access are fine for providing immediate 
> access to one's work. I have used both.
That's it. And hence the discussion should really end there, 
insofar as OA is concerned...

> But no self-archive or open access system (or institutional 
> repository, for that matter) yet meets the standards 
> established for an Open Archival Information System-compliant 
> (yet another "archive"), Trusted Digital Repository.
So what? OA is about the Access Problem, not the Preservation 
Problem.

> What is worse, as I argued in a paper in the April 15th issue 
> of RLG DigiNews, most of the publishers that allow one to 
> deposit post-prints in an institutional repository do not grant 
> authors the rights to given to the repositories the permissions 
> they need in order to be able to preserve the deposited 
> articles over time.
So what? That will take care of itself, with time. What won't, is 
OA itself. So let OA stay focused on providing OA, not veer off 
into the irrelevance of preservation archiving.

(To ward off the inevitable torrent: Yes, of course OA content is 
being preserved too -- otherwise the (little) stuff that authors 
had the good sense to self-archive 20 years ago would not still 
be with us, and still OA, today. And of course IRs can and will 
take care of preserving their content. What they need, urgently, 
is that content, which authors are not yet providing. Not 
publishers' permission to preserve, which is an utter red 
herring.)

> The only way one can ensure that one's deposited information 
> might be available over time is to use one of the author's 
> addenda (or re-write the publisher contract).
The best way to ensure that it is accessible, and usable, today, 
is to self-archive it. Worry about preservation once the 
content's up there (and if/when it's the only version afloat). 
Not now.

> So there is an immense difference in terms.  Self-archiving, 
> open access, and institutional repositories denote computer 
> systems that facilitate near-immediate access to writings. 
> Trusted Digital Repositories (aka "archives") are established, 
> funded, and have the necessary legal, technical, and 
> administrative capabilities to maintain digital information 
> over time in either a closed or open system.
Yes; and let us focus on author-version self-archiving and IRs 
for OA -- and publisher version archiving and TDRs for 
preservation.

> The problem with the language is that the use of the term 
> "archive" in "self-archiving" implies to many that the TDR 
> requirements are being met - when instead, in reality, access 
> is guaranteed only as long as the "self-archives" does not have 
> to make a copy of the original work.
Actually, neither OA self-archiving nor preservation archiving 
means much to much of anybody, since so little of either is 
actually being done today. But it seems to me that we can see and 
understand the difference in the target content and the agenda, 
once it's pointed out, without having to submit the locution 
"archiving" to any Solomonian slicing. It's just normal 
polysemy...

> If one wants an article to be permanently available, one has to 
> secure the necessary right to do so from the publisher and find 
> a IR that is committed to becoming a TDR - or rely upon the 
> publisher to take advantage of initiatives such as PORTICO and 
> LOCKSS to ensure that access (open or otherwise) will exist 
> over time.
Indeed. And let those who are fussed about that, devote their 
efforts to making sure that the official versions of all 2.5 
million annual published articles in all 25,000 peer-reviewed 
journals are permanently available by devoting themselves to TDR 
archiving.

And let those who are fussed about the needless daily, weekly, 
monthly, yearly loss of research usage and impact from which 
research is currently (anosognosically) suffering, devote their 
efforts to making sure that the author's versions of all 2.5 
million annual published articles in all 25,000 peer-reviewed 
journals are at long last self-archived (sic) in their authors' 
institutions' IRs.

Amen,

Stevan Harnad