[GOAL] Re: [BOAI10] Re: Elsevier's query re: "positive things from publishers that should be encouraged, celebrated, recognized"

[Peter Murray-Rust]

On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 8:41 PM, Eric F. Van de Velde <
eric.f.vandevelde at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> If Open Access is the only goal then all we need to do is follow Stevan's
> advice. However, the goal of Open Access itself is to change the scholarly
> information system into a system suitable for the 21st century. In this
> sense, Green Open Access is an incremental change, which is expected to
> lead to more fundamental changes over time. It is disheartening to witness
> how hard it is to implement this incremental change.
>

It is also clear that Green OA fixes our view of publishing in the last
century. It does not encourage change. It holds the "paper" (sic) as the
element of value and the publisher as an essential component and legislates
for the continuance of both. It also builds in inefficiency into the
system.

>
> However, it does not matter. Major disruption will come. When it comes, it
> will be sudden and chaotic. We have witnessed it before. It has been
> documented extensively. Most people in technology have read Clayton
> Christensen's seminal work The Innovator's Dilemma, and whoever has not
> should do as soon as possible. We are right in the run-up to a classical
> disruption where a low-margin/low-overhead business replaces a
> high-margin/high-overhead business. Initially, the low-margin business is
> sneered at because it offers low quality. By the time the high-margin
> business realizes it is in trouble it is too late.
>

I completely agree. The tensions in the earthquake zone are palpable. Among
the most obvious ones are:
* the increasing failure of the academic-publisher system to follow the
rapid development of technology. Sending manuscripts off to be retyped must
be one of the most inefficient activities on the planet.
* no evidence of the social web revolution
* the impatience of the younger generation with the closed minds of the
present.

These are additional to the other tensions of:
* financial strain in the system
* the mismatch between traditional citation analysis and more modern forms
of assessment
* the voice of the scholarly poor

There are more, but that's enough.



> This disruption (or one similar to it) is inevitable. The only question is
> when it will happen, and the precise path it will take.
>

Yes - anyone getting it right and backing it stands to become rich and
famous. There is a huge opportunity for well-directed investment.

P.


-- 
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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