Re: OA in Legal Publishing: Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship

[Shourin Sen <shourinsen@gmail.com>]

Dear Listserve:

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I'd like to provide a few 
words in support of the expansive use of the term "open access" 
adopted in the Durham Statement.  The phrase is powerful 
marketing.

About a year and a half ago, I was shopping an article to various 
law journals.  One of the questions I asked when evaluating 
offers was whether a particular journal offered "Open Access 
Principles."  Creative Commons and Science Commons had within the 
past year or so announced a new initiative (with the flashy title 
"Open Access") that encouraged journals to allow their authors 
latitude to publish in electronic repositories.  Perhaps not 
coincidentally, one of the first journals to adopt the initiative 
was the Duke Law Journal.

The terms of the initiative, and giving the initiative the title 
"Open Access Principles," flipped the negotiation process. 
Instead of entering into an adversarial negotiation for future 
use of my article, as was common in the past, all of the journals 
I spoke to welcomed immediate third-party electronic publishing, 
and gave me free reign to republish the article in other print 
journals or a book within a year.

I anticipate the Durham Statement will have a similar effect. 
There still remains a sizable minority of legal journals -- 
perhaps 30-40% -- who do not offer their articles at stable URLs 
immediately upon publication.  At the risk of misrepresenting the 
reasons for this, I suspect that many of the journals either 
haven't developed their websites, or are delaying publication out 
of deference to their print sales.

If I end up seeking publication in any of these journals, I will 
be able to point to a specific initiative that has an attractive 
name, and was adopted by the representatives of a number 
prestigious universities.  We shouldn't underestimate how 
powerful this is as a negotiation tool.  I anticipate that within 
the next six months every journal will have adopted the terms of 
the Durham Statement.

Thank you to all who developed and executed the Statement.

Best,

Shourin Sen