[GOAL] Re: Elsevier's query re: "positive things from publishers that should be encouraged, celebrated, recognized"

[Stevan Harnad]

On 2012-05-12, at 8:42 AM, Dan Brickley wrote:

> Thought experiment: what if authors posted to their personal sites, but with enough metadata (e.g. http://schema.org/ScholarlyArticle) for generic (rather than topical/institutional) search engine discovery to be feasible?

1. If 100% of authors posted (self-archived) the full-text of their articles, free for all, on their websites, we would have 100% OA; there would be no need to post to topical or institutional repositories, and google-style full-text indexing would do the rest.

2. The trouble is that 80% of authors do not post the full-text of their articles, free for all, *anywhere*.

3. That's why we need Institutional Repositories, and (Green, Gratis) OA self-archiving (posting) mandates from institutions and funders.

4. And that's why it matters what we put on out wish-list for well-intentioned publishers.

5. Metadata have next to nothing to do with it: It's about the posting (anywhere, free online) of the full-text.

> On 2012-05-11, at 6:47 PM, Peter Murray-Rust wrote:
> 
>> Alicia Wise already knows my reply - she has had enough email from me. The publishers should withdraw contractual restrictions on content-mining. That's all they need to do.
>> 
>> If Alicia Wise can say "yes" to me unreservedly, I'll be happy.
> 
> So let's all forget about OA...