[GOAL] Re: Cancelling because contents are Green OA vs. because publisher allows Green OA

[Rick Anderson]

  Is it possible that what you really intend to do is suggest that just because a publisher allows all articles to be archived Green doesn't mean that the articles are actually available that way, and that it might be dangerous for a library to cancel in a knee-jerk way when a publisher makes that allowance?
Yes.

See how easy that was? Here's how I would respond to that suggestion:

Yes, you raise a valid point. Just because a publisher allows complete and unembargoed Green OA archiving of a journal doesn't mean that all of the journal's content will end up being archived. So I would adjust the categorical statement I made in my original posting thus: "My library will cancel our subscriptions to any such journal, once we have determined that a sufficient percentage of its content is being made publicly available promptly and at no charge — promptness being assessed on a sliding scale relative to the journal's relevance to our needs."

Obviously, this will be relatively easy to do for new Green journals or for journals that make the shift in the future. As for existing Green-without-embargo journals, I'm currently discussing with my collection development staff how we might cost-effectively review the list of Green-without-embargo journal publishers found at http://bit.ly/1aOetHB and see which of their journals we currently subscribe to, and which of these we might be able to cancel. This would be a relatively time-intensive project, but we have students working at service desks in my library who could probably help.



If you see a problem with the explanation I laid out, please say what the problem is

I did (and you've just repeated part of what I said above..

Here it is again:

1. 60% of journals are Green

2. No evidence that more articles from Green journals are made Green OA than articles from non-Green journals

3. Cancelling (needed) journals because they are Green rather than because they are accessible or unaffordable is arbitrary and counterproductive (for user needs).

4. Cancelling journals because they are Green rather than because they are either unneeded or unaffordable is arbitrary and counterproductive for OA.

Depending on what our goals are, reality can sometimes be counterproductive. It's a reality that a subscription is less needed when the content of the journal in question is freely available online. (It matters, of course, what percentage of the content really becomes available that way, and how quickly it will become available. But the more its content is free and the faster it gets that way, the less incentive there is for anyone, including libraries, to pay for access to it. And the tighter a library's budget, the more sensitive its cancellation response will be to the Green-without-embargo signal.)


5. Publicly announcing (as you did) that journals are to be cancelled because they are Green rather than because they are either unneeded or unaffordable is certain to induce Green publishers to stop being Green and instead adopt and Green OA embargoes.

Discussing reality may not always help to advance an OA agenda (or any other agenda, for that matter), but eventually reality will always win. Scolding people for talking about reality is ultimately much more counterproductive than figuring out how to deal with it.


6. Library cancellation of Green journals will slow the growth of OA, thereby compounding the disservice that such an unthinking (sic) policy does both to users and to OA.

It doesn't seem to me that OA is something to which we owe allegiance. It seems to me that our goal should be a healthy, vital, and sustainable scholarly communication environment that brings the maximum possible benefit to the world.  Deciding up front that OA is the only road to such an environment has two seriously debilitating effects: first, it makes the questioning of OA, or even of specific OA strategies, into a thoughtcrime (as we've seen here today), and second, it precludes the consideration of other, possibly promising options.

Why on earth would scholars look to those that can't or won't discuss these issues in a rational, reasonably objective way for guidance on how to conduct their own scholarly communication?

---
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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