[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders

[Thomas Krichel]

  Stevan Harnad writes

> And if the institution's users need access to a journal article from
> another institution, today, they should eat cake?

  No. They should send an email to the authors and ask for a copy. If
  the authors don't respond, then just don't read that papers and
  don't cite that paper.  There are other papers to read.
 
> And maybe instead of spending money "building" the institutional
> repository, institutions should mandate filling it?

  Mandates are useful but incentives can help too. Just spend some of
  the money saved on subscription and faculty travel to conference,
  but make that support conditional on papers appearing in the IR.

> Perhaps the subscription cancelling can be saved for when 100% of
> all institutions' articles have been deposited and are accessible to
> all users as Green OA?

  No. You have to realise building institutional repository is
  expensive. It has to be funded centrally. So where is the money
  coming from? To understand this you have to take a broader look at
  the rationale for research.

  Research in universities is conducted to raise awareness of the
  university's work. It is not individually rational for an individual
  to purchase access to papers produced by other universities. Such
  purchases subsidise attention to research conducted at other
  universities. If these other universities want to advertise
  themselves, let them do it through their repositories.

  Of course it also collectively irrational for the whole university
  sector to buy back its output that it has given away for free. That
  irrationality is well understood.  The individual irrationality of
  subscription is less well understood, as Stevan's accusation of
  humbug demonstrates.

  Cheers,

  Thomas Krichel                    http://openlib.org/home/krichel
                                      http://authorprofile.org/pkr1
                                               skype: thomaskrichel