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

[Jean-Claude Guédon]

This has been the source of a few differences among OA supporters. Let
me spell this out byt inserting my variations on Stevan harnad's answers
in his text, below.
-- 
Jean-Claude Guédon
Professeur titulaire
Littérature comparée
Université de Montréal



Le dimanche 06 novembre 2011 à 12:51 -0500, Stevan Harnad a écrit :
> On Sun, 6 Nov 2011, Allen Kleiman wrote:
> 
> 
> > Is there a difference between 'access to information 'and 'access to
> the
> > publishers copy'?
> 
> 
> Yes, a lot:
> 
> 
> (1) "Information" can mean any information: published, confidential,
> public, royalty-seeking, non-royalty-seeking, author give-away,
> non-author-giveaway.


Indeed. I agree
> 
> 
> (2) The primary target information of the OA movement is refereed
> research journal articles, all of which, without exception, are
> written exclusively for research uptake, usage and impact, not for
> royalty revenues.


The primary target information of the OA movement is refereed research
results in whatever form, articles, books, etc. They are written for
research uptake, and even though some research monographs may entail
symbolic royalties, they are not published for this reason. As a result,
they should not be distinguished from the rest, especially because they
constitute the dominant symbolic currency of the humanities and the
social sciences. The OA movement also deals with the humanities and the
social sciences.
> 
> 
> (3) The restrictions (embargoes) that publishers place on OA
> self-archiving of the author's refereed, corrected, accepted final
> draft are far fewer than the restrictions on the publisher's
> version-or-record. (The publishers of over 60% of journals, including
> almost all the top journals in each field, already endorse OA
> self-archiving of the author's final draft -- but not the publisher's
> version-of-record -- immediately upon publication. These are called
> "green" publishers, and OA self-archiving is called "green OA.")


I agree for journals, particularly STM journals. The situation is not so
rosily green (!!!) in the humanities and social sciences, and it is far
worse in the case of monographs.
> 
> 
> The OA movement is not -- and cannot be -- the movement for open
> access to all "information."


I agree
> 
> 
> It is the movement for open access to refereed research journal
> articles.


Refereed research results. This is important to avoid discriminating
against the humanities and the social sciences, once again.
> 
> 
> The author's refereed, corrected, accepted final draft is the refereed
> journal article.

I agree with this, but must point out, once more, that the humanities
and social sciences do not limit themselves to citing articles; they
also quote from these articles, and this requires page numbers. if the
version made accessible in a repository is not paginated in the same way
as the final, publisher's version, it can be read and cited, but not
quoted in the usual manner. This situation creates obstacles to
researchers. It can be overcome by either checking the publisher's
version, but that is not always possible for economic reasons (the
library does not subscribe to this journal), or by citing as well as
quoting the repository version, which is what more and more people
resort to doing, as could have been anticipated. This in turn means that
the version in the repository must enjoy stable accessibility and its
quality should be guaranteed in some fashion. But this also means that
the repository version begins to compete with the publisher,s version.
Repositories are beginning to explore these issues, but it will require
a collective approach and the establishment of quality standards in
repositories to find solutions.
> 
> 
> Access to the author's refereed, corrected, accepted final draft of a
> refereed journal article is the difference between night and day for
> all would-be users whose institutions cannot afford subscription
> access to the publisher's version of record.


It is more like the difference between night and early dawn. The "night
and day" result happens when only citing is needed. In cases where
quoting is also needed, it is more difficult to achieve (hence the dawn,
rather the day). In poorer countries, I suspect it is close to being
impossible.
> 
> 
> This is why the first and most urgent priority of the OA movement is
> to ensure that all research institutions and funders mandate (require)
> the deposit of the author's refereed, corrected, accepted final draft
> of every refereed journal article in their institutional repository
> immediately upon publication (with access to the deposit immediately
> set as Open Access for at least 60% of the deposits from green
> journals, and the repository's semi-automated "email eprint request"
> Button providing "Almost OA" to the remaining 40% for individuals
> requesting access for research purposes.semi-automatically with two
> key-presses, at the discretion of the author).


I agree with all of this, but I must point out that in some countries,
including the US, the "email eprint request" must be designed very
carefully so as not to run afoul of copyright legislation. An automatic
sending of the article by the repository simultaneously with the sending
of the email request to the author, even though the author may have
given a blanket release on his article, may be assimilated to illegal
publishing in some jurisdictions, especially if the author has signer
all of her rights away to a publisher. The best way is to have a letter
go to the author and have the author send directly the article to the
person requesting. This will protect the repository from possible
litigations.

Jean-Claude Guédon
> 
> 
> Stevan Harnad
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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