Re: The Argument Against (Premature) Gold OA Support

[richards1000@comcast.net]

If I understand correctly, Prof. Shieber is making an empirical 
argument: that in his experience, he has found that institutions 
have declined to vote to implement Green OA unless institutional 
support for Gold OA was also implemented, and that based on that 
evidence, he predicts that, going forward, institutions will not 
vote to implement Green OA unless institutional support for Gold 
OA is also implemented.

That is, he seems to be making the empirical claim that a 
commitment to institutional support for Gold OA has been, and 
will continue to be, a necessary condition of persuading 
institutions to implement Green OA.  If that is an accurate 
characterization of Prof. Shieber's argument (and I'm not certain 
that it is), then I would think that the prospective component of 
this empirical claim could be tested empirically, say, by 
surveying the institutions that have not implemented Green OA 
respecting what they consider to be the necessary conditions for 
persuading them to implement Green OA.

Such surveys may have already been performed.  I think that such 
empirical evidence would substantially enhance this debate.

Robert C. Richards, Jr., J.D.*, M.S.L.I.S., M.A.
Law Librarian & Legal Information Consultant
Philadelphia, PA
richards1000@comcast.net
* Member New York bar, retired status.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stevan Harnad" <amsciforum@gmail.com>
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 11:49:09 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: The Argument Against (Premature) Gold OA Support

I have written a response to 
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2009/06/11/the-argument-for-gold-oa-s= 
upport/ "The argument for gold OA support" by Stuart Shieber.

The full response is at: 
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/590-guid.html 
"The Argument Against (Premature) Gold OA Support"

Here is just the summary:

What is needed in order to provide universal OA as quickly and 
surely as possible is for universities (and funders) to mandate 
that their own researchers provide (Green) OA by depositing their 
articles in their institution's OA repository immediately upon 
acceptance for publication. It is both a strategic and a 
conceptual mistake to think that money has to be spent at this 
time on paying for publishing in Gold OA journals. Gold OA 
journals' time will come if and when universal Green OA makes 
subscriptions unsustainable. Then publishers will cut costs and 
downsize to just providing the service of managing peer review, 
paid for by institutions out of their windfall subscription 
cancellation savings. Universities and funders should not be 
either distracted or deterred from mandating Green OA now by 
thinking that they first need to provide funds to pay for Gold 
OA. (Once they have adopted a Green OA mandate, this is no longer 
a distraction or deterrent and they can of course do whatever 
they like with their spare cash.)

(1) Any needless cost at all associated with adopting and 
implementing a Green OA mandate is a deterrent to arriving at 
consensus on adoption, not an incentive.

(2) Minimal costs for Harvard U are not necessarily minimal for 
HaveNot U.

(3) The way to explain the possible eventual transition to 
universal Gold OA is via its causal antecedent: universal Green 
OA.

(4) The way to allay worries about Learned Society Publishers=92 
future after universal Green OA is to explain the simple, 
straightforward relation between institutional subscription 
collapse and institutional subscription cancellation savings, and 
how it releases the funds to continue paying for publication via 
Gold OA. (And remind faculty that if their institutions really 
want to keep subsidizing Learned Society publishers' "good works" 
(conferences, scholarships, lobbying) as they are now through 
subscription-fees, they can certainly continue to do so through 
publication fees too, as a surcharge, on the Gold OA model, if 
they wish.)

(5) Reserve any plans for promoting pre-emptive payment of Gold 
OA fees for those institutions that have already mandated Green 
OA (and preferably only after we are further along the road from 
85 mandates to 10,000!).

(6) Pre-emptive payment for Gold OA before universal Green OA 
just retards and distracts from providing and mandating Green OA. 
Moreover, it is incoherent and does not scale ("universalize"): 
It is like an Escher drawing, leading nowhere, even though it 
seems to.

Stevan Harnad