[GOAL] Re: "Yawanna know wush wrong with this damn planet...?."

[Stevan Harnad]

> On Dec 31, 2015, at 10:59 AM, Thomas Krichel <krichel at openlib.org> wrote:
> 
>  Stevan Harnad writes
> 
>> 1. Actually, no one really knows why it is taking so long to reach the
>> optimal and inevitable outcome -- universal OA --
> 
>  oh I know. It's because libraries are spending money on subscriptions.
>  And as long as they do, OA remains evitable.

That’s about as useful as saying that "I know why there is poverty:
because the rich are rich and the poor are poor."

Not only is it not possible to treat “libraries” as if they were a monolith
any more than it is possible to treat “authors” as a monolith, 
but it is completely out of the question for a university library
to cancel subscriptions while its users have no other means to
access that content. 

(Please don’t reply that they do cancel what they cannot afford: that is 
not relevant. Libraries subscribe to as much content that their users need 
as they can afford to subscribe to.)

The only way to make subscriptions cancellable is to first mandate 
and provide (universal — not just local) Green OA <http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/04/28/inflated-subscriptions-unsustainable-harnad/>.

SH

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