[GOAL] OA Overview January 2017

[Stevan Harnad]

Not to put too fine a point on it (and this reminds me why I've tired of
the fray):

If double-payment for subscriptions (first pay for the research, then pay
again to buy it "back") had been a valid argument against having to pay for
subscriptions, *it would have applied to books too, just as to journals*:
"Why should institutions pay the cost of researching and writing their
books, only to have to buy them "back"?* Answer*: because books, unlike
journal articles, are *not author give-aways*, written solely for usage,
uptake and impact. Books are also written for (potential) royalties (and
there might possibly still be some added value in producing and purchasing
a hard copy).

If the double-payment argument is not valid for books, then it's not valid
for peer-reviewed journal articles either. (And this is true no matter what
perspective one takes on the "double-payment": the institution, the funder,
the funder's funder (the tax-payer) or the whole planet.)

The valid argument is that *peer-reviewed journal articles are give-away
research*: No one should have to pay for access to it, neither its author
nor its users. The only thing still worth paying for in the OA era is the
peer review (Fair-Gold OA).

(Preservation is a red herring in this context. So is "journal impact
factor.")

No lengthy "re-education" program for scholars is needed to enlighten them
that they should self-archive all their papers. The message is too simple
(and over 20 years seems more than enough for any scholarly "re-education"
progamme!) If the diagnosis of laziness, timidity or stupidity does not
explain why they don't self-archive, find another descriptor. It's
happening, but it's happening far too slowly. And institutional (and
funder) self-archiving (Green OA) mandates still look like the only means
of accelerating it (and forcing publishers journals to downsize and convert
to Fair Gold). (Paying instead pre-emptively for Fool's Gold is
unaffordable, unsustainable and unnecessary -- and that's the real
double-payment.)

*Stevan Harnad*

On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 4:46 PM, Arthur Sale <ahjs at ozemail.com.au> wrote:

> This is angels dancing on the point of a pin!.
>
> Universities subscribe to journals or buy books to either (a) get other
> people’s research outputs, or (b) to acquire a canonic authorized version
> of their own research in print. Yes, it sounds silly, but librarians value
> preservation.
>
> If a subscription gives you back some of what you’ve already got, well who
> cares? Not the author, nor the institution, nor the publisher. I often get
> freebies that I don’t need, but that does not invalidate my original
> purchase, nor reduce its value to me.
>
>
>
> Arthur Sale
>
> Also tilling other fields, but not asleep either. Think functionally!
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *Arthur Sale PhD*
>
> Emeritus Professor of Computer Science
>
> School of Engineering and ICT | Faculty of Science, Engineering and
> Technology
>
> University of Tasmania
>
> Private Bag 65
>
> HOBART TASMANIA 7001
>
> M +61 4 1947 1331
>
> http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7261-8035
>
>
>
> [image: cid:CA66235E-F79F-4ECD-A612-0376BD33B152]
>
> CRICOS 00586B
>
>
>
> *From:* Repositories discussion list [mailto:JISC-REPOSITORIES@
> JISCMAIL.AC.UK] *On Behalf Of *Stevan Harnad
> *Sent:* Monday, 9 January 2017 23:14 PM
> *To:* JISC-REPOSITORIES at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
> *Subject:* Re: OA Overview January 2017
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 5:30 AM, David Prosser <david.prosser at rluk.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> *SH:* (2) No, the institution that pays for the research output is not
> paying a second time to buy it back. Institutional journal subscriptions
> are not for buying back their own research output. They already have their
> own research output. They are buying *in* the research output of *other* institutions,
> and of other countries, with their journal subscriptions. So no
> double-payment there, even if you reckon it at the funder- or the
> tax-payer-level instead of the level of the institution that pays for the
> subscription.
>
>
>
> *DP:* So, when UCL (say) purchases access to Elsevier articles through
> ScienceDIrect (say) Elsevier removes all of the UCL articles from the
> bundle and prices accordingly?  Of course not.  The institution is
> purchasing articles by researchers across the world’s, *including* its
> own.
>
>
>
> To repeat: UCL (and everyone) has their own article output. Getting access
> to their own article output is not why researchers publish, nor why
> institutions subscribe to journals. It is to get access to the articles of
> others.
>
>
>
> So that version of the simplistic double-payment plaint is, and remains,
> invalid. (And it, and its (il)logic predates OA by at least a decade.
>
>
>
> *DP:* SBut I agree with (12)
>
>
>
> But (12) is about OA, not the old double-payment argument against
> subscriptions (which, by the way, if it had been valid would also have
> applied to royalty-based output, including the institutional purchase of
> books by its own authors!). The essence of the case for OA is and has
> always been that (refereed) research is an author *giveaway*, written
> only for researcher uptake, usage and impact, not for royalty revenue. We
> keep forgetting this, with this misleading notion of "double-payment" (for
> subscription access).
>
>
>
> There is certainly double-payment in the case of OA (subscription plus
> Fool's Gold publication fees) as well as double-dipping (in the case of
> hybrid Fool's Gold). But that is not at all the kind of double-payment that
> the old argument against subscriptions was (and is) about.
>
>
>
> Stevan Harnad (tilling other fields, but not asleep)
>
>
>
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