RE: Plan B for NIH Public Access Mandate: A Deposit Mandate

["Nawin" <nawin.gupta@comcast.net>]

Amen!  There is so much more to gain if we were to channel all of 
the energies that have been heretofore spent on talking about OA 
into other challenges and opportunities in scholarly publishing.

Nawin Gupta
Phone +1 773-685-6651
Mobile +1 773-623-9199
nawin.gupta@comcast.net
www.nawingupta.com

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph J. Esposito
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 9:17 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Plan B for NIH Public Access Mandate: A Deposit Mandate

I feel obliged to state the obvious:  Stevan Harnad's comment in 
this thread about "that rare, lucky author" is an admission that 
OA has little impact. That author is rare and lucky because he or 
she has so many requests for copies of articles that are 
otherwise not available to other researchers. Most authors, of 
course, will not be troubled much with requests because the 
articles are indeed available to most researchers through 
institutional subscriptions.

Whatever one feels about the legality of the NIH policy, the 
conclusion is inescapable (citing Harnad as above) that OA is a 
small idea.  How it has come to dominate discourse concerning 
scholarly communications is a marvel, comparable in its way to 
the sudden interest of the popular media in hunting moose.

Joe Esposito