[GOAL] Re: Fwd: Institutions: Ignore Elsevier Take-Down Notices (and Mandate Immediate-Deposit)

[Peter Murray-Rust]

There are two separate issues here.

On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Jan Velterop <velterop at gmail.com> wrote:

> Elsevier's (or at least Tom Reller's) response is as expected, though it
> does show an apparent – mistaken IMO – belief in the idea that a 'final'
> manuscript is inferior to the published version of an article. Much
> inferior, actually, given that the published version purports to justify
> the difference in cost to the reader wishing to access the article. My
> experience – though by definition limited, of course – is that the
> difference between final manuscript and published article is mostly minor
> in terms of content, and mainly one of appearance.  If we look beyond
> content, there is often a difference in findability, usability (e.g. for
> TDM) and functionality (e.g. links and enhancements). For the professional
> end-user, my contention is that those differences in usability and
> functionality are much more important than any slight differences in
> content (which, if present at all, are mostly of a linguistic nature, not a
> scientific one).
>
>
In many cases publishers seriously detract from the quality of a
publication. Reformatting can destroy readability - I have fought one major
chemical publisher who reformatted computer code as proportional font and
refused to change and even when we corrected the proofs they changed it
back because it wasn't house style. By coincidence I heard a tale at lunch
where a publishers had changed the units in a diagram "to make them
consistent". The diagram now has Resistance (Gigahertz). Even a
non-scientist knows that Hertz is frequency and Ohm is resistance but the
technical editors didn't. Turning vector diagrams (EPS) into bitmaps - very
common - makes me cringe.


> So why don't subscription publishers use that distinction in their
> policies and provide a simple, human-readable-only version freely, on their
> own web sites (findability, transparency as regards usage), while keeping
> the fully functional, machine-readable version for the professional
> scientist (power-user) covered by subscription pay-walls? Not quite the
> same as true open access, clearly. That is, not as good as 'gold' (be it
> supported by APCs or subsidies). But neither is 'green' with its fragmented
> nature, often low functionality (only simple PDFs, no TDM), often
> embargoed, etc. Making a distinction with regard to access on the real
> basis of functionality differences instead of the illusory basis of content
> differences may be a compromise more meaningful for authors on the one hand
> (visibility) and incidental readers outside of academia on the other
> ('ocular' access).
>
>
> No, Jan, PLEASE NOT.

Publishers would love to be able to offer an "enhanced version of XML" for
which they could charge more ("added value"). I have asserted "The Right to
Read is the Right to Mine"  and a number of organizations (e.g. BL, JISC,
Wellcome, OKFN, Ubiquity, etc. ) have argued in Brussels for the right to
carry out TDM on material they have the right to read. The TA publishers
fought this, we walked out, and Neelie Kroes has declared we should start
afresh and have a different non-licence approach.

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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