[BOAI] Re: The affordability problem vs. the accessibility problem

[Stevan Harnad]

On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 5:24 PM, Bernard Lang <Bernard.Lang at inria.fr> wrote:

Everything is very simple when you think only in terms of being able
> to access a copy of the work and read it. Either you can or you can't.
> It is either self archived or it is the publisher's copy.
>

It's not so simple for the 80% of yearly journal articles that are neither
self-archived nor published in an OA journal -- for all the would-be users
who cannot afford subscription access to the publisher's copy.

And that is what OA is about, and for, first and foremost.

But a contract that allows you to read an article may wall
> prohibit mechanical uses of some forms.
>

That may be, but the pressing (and completely solvable) problem today is
not other forms of use: it is access (to read).

And the solution is for all institutions and funders to mandate
self-archiving ("green OA").


> So the issue is not just access to works by individual
> scientists, but what can be done with the works in a very general
> sense, and by whom, through what tools.


The pressing issue today is access; uses beyond that are secondary at a
time when universal access is fully reachable, but not yet being reached
for.

Other issues (libre OA, copyright reform, publishing reform) can be
addressed later: What is needed now is gratis green OA, and the way to get
that is to mandate self-archiving.

There is a lot more at stakes than just casual access, and the devil
> is in the details of the contracts, whether green, gold, or any other
> color.
>

No, the devil is most definitely not in the details of contracts; it is in
the paralysis of researchers' fingers that are not self-archiving. And the
saviour is self-archiving mandates.

(To be angels, all publishers need do is to endorse OA self-archiving of
their authors' refereed final drafts immediately upon publication, as over
60% of journals, including most of the top journals, already do. But even
publisher endorsement is not necessary for mandating self-archiving:
Mandating immediate deposit, even if access is embargoed, is infinitely
better than not mandating it -- and it is the surest way to hasten the
well-deserved deaths of the remaining 40% of OA embargoes.)


> So my question is whether there is in-depth analysis of open-access
> contracts signed by authors, and their implications for the future,
> given that many such contracts will last for 70 years after the
> author's death, that is essentially for ever.
>

Yes, there is plenty of preoccupation with that issue. And it is a
distraction and a waste of precious time (and access and impact) until and
unless self-archiving is first mandated.


> A related question is whether there is somewhere a repository of
> contracts used by the 23000 academic publications (from memory, I read
> that figure in a report), whether run privately, by academia or by
> learned organizations.
>

SHERPA/ROMEO comes close. But the only aspect of current publisher policy
that is relevant is whether or not they endorse immediate, unembargoed OA
self-archiving (those are the "green" publishers -- though not in
SHERPA/ROMEO's silly color code, where they are either green or blue...).

The rest is all beside the point -- until immediate deposit has been
mandated.


> Although books are not generally concerned by OA, it might be
> interesting to know the general access constraints for their digital
> form.
>

Another time- and access- and impact-wasting distraction.

For refereed journal articles, every single one of them is written purely
for research uptake and impact, not for author royalties from sales. Not so
for books.

So don't conflate the simple, exception-free, open-and-shut case of journal
article OA with the complicated, exception-ridden, and not at all
straightforward case of books (or music or films or software).

Solve the immediately soluble problem first: Grasp what's already within
reach before straining to try to reach what is not not yet within reach.
(Green OA self-archiving will only help these further goals; over-reaching
instead yields nothing at all.)

Stevan Harnad
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