[GOAL] Unanimity (Re: [SCHOLCOMM] Monographs)

[Rick Anderson]

there is unanimity among researchers about desiring -- even if not daring, except if mandated, to provide -- OA to peer-reviewed journal articles

If researchers unanimously desired OA, then there would be an OA mandate on every campus. Nothing is stopping the faculty from requiring OA of themselves except their own ambivalence about it—an ambivalence which is deep, real, and widespread. This ambivalence can be seen in the nature of those mandates that do exist on campuses, which are almost invariably not mandates at all, but rather expressions of institutional preference thinly disguised as mandates.

One of the things hobbling the growth of OA is a mindset that assumes everyone obviously wants OA, and that shouts down critical questions as heretical rather than treating them seriously as expressions real and well-informed concern. Take it from someone working with real-world faculty at a real-world Research I university: in the real world, researchers are ambivalent about OA. Not against it, but ambivalent about it: they see benefits, they see costs, they're not sure that they fully comprehend all of the benefits and all of the costs, and many are unsure how the benefits and costs will ultimately balance out for them. Until they're certain the costs will outweight the benefits, many researchers are unwilling simply to run to the OA barricades just because someone says they should. (And it's this kind of independent and critical thinking, incidentally, that tends to make a good researcher.)

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Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Scholarly Resources & Collections
Marriott Library, University of Utah
Desk: (801) 587-9989
Cell: (801) 721-1687
rick.anderson at utah.edu
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