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

[Stevan Harnad]

On 2012-05-12, at 8:20 AM, Richard Poynder wrote:

> List members will doubtless correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that the nub of this issue is that Peter Murray-Rust believes that when a research library pays a subscription for a scholarly journal (or a collection of journals) the subscription should give researchers at that institution the right both to read the content with their eyeballs, and to mine it with their machines -- and that this should be viewed as an automatic right. 

Licensing rights are an excellent topic for the 
Library licensing list: LibLicense-L Discussion 
Forum LIBLICENSE-L at listserv.crl.edu

I am not implying that they should not be discussed 
on the Global Open Access List (GOAL) too, when 
they are relevant to OA. 

But it seems to me that when the Director for 
Universal Access of a rather large publisher 
posts a query to an open access list about 
what we wish to encourage publishers to do 
(and praise), we should encourage and praise 
measures that will help us reach OA, not 
measures that are either orthogonal to OA or 
even potential sops to sweeten the failure to
rescind measures that make it harder to
reach OA.

Stevan Harnad

> On 11/05/2012 11:19, Wise, Alicia (Elsevier) asked:

>> [W]hat positive things are established scholarly publishers doing to facilitate the various visions for open access and future scholarly communications that should be encouraged, celebrated, recognized?   
>> Dr Alicia Wise
>> Director of Universal Access
>> Elsevier


>> 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.
> 
> SH: So let's all forget about OA... 

>> Elsevier's shameful, cynical, self-serving and incoherent 
>> clause about  "mandates  for systematic postings"  ("you may 
>> post if you wish but not if you must"), which attempts 
>> to take it all back, should be dropped, immediately.
>> 
>> That clause -- added when Elsevier realized that
>> Green Gratis OA mandates were catching on -- is a 
>> paradigmatic example of the publisher FUD and 
>> double-talk. It has no legal force or meaning, but it
>> scares authors.
>> 
>> Dropping it would be a great cause for encouragement, 
>> celebration and recognition, and would put Elsevier
>> irreversibly on the side of the angels.