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

[Stevan Harnad]

Alas,  Eric, we are re-treading old, old ground (which has led nowhere)

Please try the argument with faculty (in the online click-through era, 
no less) that  "We are cancelling all subscriptions to the journals you've 
been using: henceforth get a personal subscription, or pay-per-view,
 or email for an eprint, or (!) look for it on the web...

And all this newfound access-denial, in the name of trying to lower the price 
of journals (at a time when the clamour for OA is growing).

And when you're done doing that, tell them also that they are henceforth not
only being denied access to the journals they have been reading: they
should also stop publishing in them, and publish instead in "alternate" journals 
(to which we will "instruct" P&T committees to accord equal weight, 
regardless of whether they have any evidence or track-record to show
that they have earned it).

And all these heroics, instead of simply mandating Green OA
and letting nature take care of the rest.

It's not just the publishing tail that is trying to wag the research
dog: librarians (understandably frustrated with inflating 
subscription prices) are trying to do it too!

If you need to cancel what's literally no longer affordable, cancel
it, as librarians have been doing all along, necessarily. 

But use your indignation to push for Green OA mandates, not
against them!

(Actually, a threat to do what you propose above might be almost
as good as a Green OA mandates to rouse institutional authors from
their Zeno's Paralysis and scare their fingers into motion, doing those 
Green keystrokes, just to fend off the subscription cancelations and
the restrictions on what journals they're allowed to publish in!

Stevan Harnad

On 2012-06-20, at 10:37 AM, Eric F. Van de Velde wrote:

> Stevan:
> Thomas's "humbug" advice is not incompatible with green open access or with mandates. In fact, it would accelerate the evolution of open access.
> 
> You equate access to the pay-walled literature with institutional site licenses. There are other ways to gain access:
> 1. Obtain a personal subscription.
> 2. Pay per view.
> 3. Send a nice e-mail to the authors requesting an author-formatted copy.
> 4. Do a web search with a choice key words, and invariably one version or another pops up.
> 
> In fact, if institutions were to gradually cut subscriptions, they would give the two unequivocal signals (money talks):
> 1. To publishers: We mean it when we say scholarly publishing is too expensive. The superinflationary price increases are stopping now.
> 2. To faculty: We mean it when we say we will not pay any price for scholarly literature. You may have to start paying for access yourself OR you can change where you submit your papers.
> 
> It would be nice if, in addition, university administrations would also make clear that, in this age of change, they will instruct P&T committees to be open to publications in alternate forms and in non-establishment journals. This does not require loosening standards. It just acknowledges that traditional metrics are increasingly weak. Making sure such alternate publications are of high quality may mean substantially more work for the P&T committee.
> --Eric.
> 
> http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com
> 
> Google Voice: (626) 898-5415
> Telephone:      (626) 376-5415
> Skype: efvandevelde -- Twitter: @evdvelde
> E-mail: eric.f.vandevelde at gmail.com
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 7:10 AM, Stevan Harnad <harnad at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> On 2012-06-20, at 9:19 AM, Thomas Krichel wrote:
> 
> >  Stevan Harnad writes
> >
> >> Some humble advice for institutions and libraries:
> >> Negotiate with publishers about subscription price.
> >
> >  Some not so humble advice: cut subscriptions.
> >  Spen[d] a part of the savings building the institutional
> >  repository.
> 
> And if the institution's users need access to a journal article
> from another institution, today, they should eat cake?
> 
> Or look for it, today, in their own institutional repository?
> 
> And maybe instead of spending money "building" the
> institutional repository, institutions should mandate
> filling it? The only cost of that is a few extra author
> keystrokes.
> 
> 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?
> 
> Maybe humble advice is more helpful than humbug advice? ;>)
> 
> Stevan
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