On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 5:24 PM, Bernard Lang <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Bernard.Lang@inria.fr">Bernard.Lang@inria.fr</a>></span> wrote:<div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Everything is very simple when you think only in terms of being able<br>
to access a copy of the work and read it. Either you can or you can't.<br>
It is either self archived or it is the publisher's copy.<br></blockquote><div> </div><div>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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>And that is what OA is about, and for, first and foremost. </div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">But a contract that allows you to read an article may wall<br>
prohibit mechanical uses of some forms.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That may be, but the pressing (and completely solvable) problem today is not other forms of use: it is access (to read).</div><div><br></div><div>
And the solution is for all institutions and funders to mandate self-archiving ("green OA").</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
So the issue is not just access to works by individual<br>
scientists, but what can be done with the works in a very general<br>
sense, and by whom, through what tools. </blockquote><div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
There is a lot more at stakes than just casual access, and the devil<br>
is in the details of the contracts, whether green, gold, or any other<br>
color. <br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>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. </div>
<div><br></div><div>(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.) </div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">So my question is whether there is in-depth analysis of open-access<br>
contracts signed by authors, and their implications for the future,<br>
given that many such contracts will last for 70 years after the<br>
author's death, that is essentially for ever.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
A related question is whether there is somewhere a repository of<br>
contracts used by the 23000 academic publications (from memory, I read<br>
that figure in a report), whether run privately, by academia or by<br>
learned organizations.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>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...). </div>
<div><br></div><div>The rest is all beside the point -- until immediate deposit has been mandated.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">Although books are not generally concerned by OA, it might be<br>
interesting to know the general access constraints for their digital<br>
form. <br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Another time- and access- and impact-wasting distraction. </div><div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>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).</div>
<div><br></div><div>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.)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Stevan Harnad </div></div></div>