[BOAI] Re: Changes in publisher policies on repository deposit?

[Margaret Freeman]

Dear Stevan:

I¹ve been following BOAI¹s various emails with interest, and appreciate all
you and others are doing. As you may (or may not) remember, I had difficulty
with the idea of posting my papers online since they contain copyrighted
texts (Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Robert Frost, etc.).

Since then, the President of our Institute agreed to edit the Cognitive
Science section of the Social Sciences Research network >http://ssrn.com/<,
<http://ssrn.com/>  and I realised that what it is in effect is an online
library. So I had no problem posting my articles, which are immediately
accessible to all who want to read them. (I think if some publisher wanted
to challenge that idea, they would be faced not only with the argument I
understand Open Access¹s Initiative makes about federally funded research
being made available on the basis of its tax-supported funding, but with the
­ to me - stronger argument that this is the twenty-first century¹s version
of the public library.)  I¹ve discovered ³repositories² often limit access
to those outside the institution. A briar patch indeed!

All best,

Margaret

Margaret H. Freeman
Myrifield Institute for Cognition and the Arts
23 Avery Brook Road
Heath, MA 01346-0132
(413) 337-4854
freemamh at lavc.edu
https://sites.google.com/a/case.edu/myrifield/
http://myrifield.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=84115425985

You can access my papers on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at:
http://ssrn.com/author=1248859




On 6/2/09 9:32 AM, "Stevan Harnad" <harnad at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:

> On 2-Jun-09, at 8:05 AM, Peter Suber wrote:
> 
>>  [Forwarding from Fred Friend via the JISC-Repositories list.  --Peter
>> Suber.]
>>  
>>  To all repository managers:
>>   
>>  Rumours are spreading that Elsevier staff are approaching UK
>> Vice-Chancellors persuading them to point to PDF copies of articles on
>> Elsevier's web-site rather than have the articles deposited in institutional
>> repositories. It appears that the argument being used is that this will be a
>> cheaper option than maintaining full-text within repositories. If these
>> reports are true, my guess is that Elsevier are using these arguments to
>> undermine deposit mandates.
> 
> Here is my prediction:
> 
>> (1) Yes, Elsevier and other publishers would be happier if researchers did
>> not deposit their final drafts in their institutional repositories, and if
>> their institutions and funders did not mandate that they do so. Hence it is
>> not at all surprising that they may be trying to persuade UK VCs to link to
>> PDFs at Elsevier's website instead of having their researchers deposit their
>> own final drafts in their own institutional repositories.
>> 
>> (2) But UK VCs presumably still have some autonomy and judgement of their
>> own. So whereas they will understand why it might be in publishers' interest
>> if universities' research output were held at publishers' websites rather
>> than in the university's own repository, they will also see quite clearly why
>> this would not be in the interest of their universities, or their
>> researchers, or research assessment, or research itself.
>> 
>> (3) So the attempt at persuasion will prove unpersuasive.
> 
> So please let us not again stir up groundless and distracting anxieties about
> this. Let publishers try to persuade whomever they wish of whatever they wish.
> The interested parties will make their own decisions, according to their own
> interests.
> 
> What UK VCs should be (and are) doing is persuading their own researchers to
> provide Open Access to their own research output, in their own repositories,
> by adopting university Open Access self-archiving mandates
> <http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/> , as 83 institutions and
> funders worldwide have already done. UK has the world's highest concentration
> of these mandates, and two more are about to be announced (stay tuned).
> 
> Elsevier (and the majority <http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php>  of other
> publishers), despite their efforts at VC persuasion, and despite the familiar
> doomsday scenarios <http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#32.Poisoned>
> to the contrary, remain on the side of the angels
> <http://blogsearch.google.ca/blogsearch?hl=en&amp;num=100&amp;c2coff=1&amp;saf
> e=active&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=%2522side+of+the+angels%2522+blogurl%253Ahttp%253A
> %252F%252Fopenaccess.eprints.org%252F&amp;btnG=Search+Blogs>  insofar as OA
> self-archiving is concerned, endorsing authors depositing their final drafts
> in their institutional repositories.
> 
> Let us concentrate on accelerating OA mandate adoption and not worry about how
> publishers might be trying to decelerate it: The outcome is optimal (for
> research, researchers, their institutions, and the tax-paying public that
> funds them) -- and inevitable.
> 
>> If Vice-Chancellors are persuaded to adopt this policy, it would only give
>> repository access to an unsatisfactory version (PDFs will not enable re-use
>> for research purposes) and access on Elsevier's terms. If this is Elsevier's
>> strategy it would seem to negate their "green" status. Previous
>> correspondence on this list has indicated a harder line on repository deposit
>> by Wiley-Blackwell, and if Elsevier are also hardening their policy, mandates
>> for repository deposit could lose much of their potential effectiveness in
>> increasing access to research content.
> 
> There is no hardening of policies, the PDF issue is a red herring
> <http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/460-guid.html> , and green
> continues to be green.
>   
>>  It would be wise for repository managers to brief their senior university
>> management on this issue. The threat to repository deposit also adds to the
>> need for authors to be briefed on the use of a licence to publish retaining
>> certain rights rather than ceding all control over their work to the
>> publisher.
> 
> There is no threat to repository deposit; a green light to deposit a postprint
> <http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#What-is-Eprint>  is sufficient
> for green OA and green OA mandates, irrespective of whether the postprint is
> the author's final draft or the publisher's PDF.
>   
>>  Any publishers reading this message should understand that dialogue on the
>> issues above will be welcome, in particular clarification of any change in
>> publisher policies.
> 
> What is needed is not (still more!) dialogue with publishers but
> self-archiving of postprints by the researchers -- and postprint
> self-archiving mandates by researchers' institutions and funders.
> 
> Repository managers do far more for OA if they focus on helping their
> institution to adopt self-archiving policies rather than if they focus on how
> publisher may be trying to maximise their interests by delaying or distracting
> from them.
> 
> Stevan Harnad
>   
>>  Fred Friend (not writing on behalf of any organisation or institution)
> 
> 
>         
> --      
> To unsubscribe from the BOAI Forum, use the form on this page:
> http://www.soros.org/openaccess/forum.shtml?f


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/boai-forum/attachments/20090602/3fe731ae/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
"DISCLAIMER: This message is proprietary to iPolicy Networks Limited and is intended solely for the use of the individuals to whom it is addressed. It may contain privileged or confidential information and should not be circulated or used for any purpose other than for what is intended. If you have received this message in error, please notify the originator immediately. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that you are strictly prohibited from using, copying, altering, or disclosing the contents of this message. iPolicy Networks Limited accepts no responsibility for loss or damage arising from the use of the information transmitted by this email including damage from virus."