[GOAL] Re: Why should publishers agree to Green OA?

[Peter Murray-Rust]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 8:53 AM,  The Director Of Universal Access -
(Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) <A.Wise at elsevier.com>) wrote:

>  Hi all,****
>
> ** **
>
> Just a quick point of clarification…. Elsevier doesn’t forbid posting if
> there is a mandate.  We ask for an agreement with the institution that has
> the mandate, and there is no cost for these agreements.  The purpose of
> these agreements is to work out a win-win solution to find a way for the
> underlying journals in which academics choose to publish to be sustainable
> even if there are high posting rates. ****
>
> **
>

The last sentence is meaningless. It's publisher-mumble. It looks helpful
and contains no useful substance.

If I try to interpret it means that a university has to "negotiate" with
Elsevier as to how to keep a journal sustainable. That's not the
universities job.

There are 2000 universities with repositories and many more that subscribe
to Elsevier journals. So that is perhaps 10,000 agreements that have ot be
signed. What a waste of everyone's time.

So The Director Of Universal Access will have to sign 10,000 agreemnts.

Given that the DoUA has by their own figures signed 20 agreemnts on
content-mining in five years (that's 4 per year), it's clear that DoUA does
not actually expect to process 10,000 agreements - relying on FUD to
inactivate libraries.

And yes, there's a huge cost for the libraries

Multiply by (say) 100 publishers (yes, Ross Mounce has a list of 100 with
"agreements" on how to restrict content mining). That's 1,000,000(1
million) agreements that have to be signed. A massive expense for academia.

The only efficient way to do things in the current world is to say YES or
NO and apply it to everyone. At least the ACS is honest. It forbids
anything.





-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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