[GOAL] COVID-19 and access to knowledge

Tue Mar 31 17:35:14 BST 2020

Peter, Stevan, and Jean-Claude,

Sorry if my life's circumstances led me to become a greedy devil instead of a tenured saint.

That said, I don't think it's right to assume that we are working out of self-interest to build the Coronavirus Research Hub - as early as January individuals at Elsevier and people here in my team sought to do our bit to make information discoverable. These people are like me, we live outside a Manichean world and as we decided to do our part with the tools at our disposal even if that didn't solve all the issues in the world we live in. There are people in these organizations and insulting us at the personal level doesn't help creating the sense of community we all need to fight this bug. There is time for theory, other for actions.

Cordially

Éric

________________________________
From: goal-bounces at eprints.org <goal-bounces at eprints.org> on behalf of Jean-Claude Guédon <jean.claude.guedon at umontreal.ca>
Sent: March 31, 2020 11:17 AM
To: goal at eprints.org <goal at eprints.org>
Subject: Re: [GOAL] COVID-19 and access to knowledge

I also strongly agree with Peter. As for Éric Archambault, it is simply a pity to see greed trump principles.

One last note: OA will succeed, despite what Stevan says. Let us shape OA the right way, and certainly not in the way supported by Elsevier: in their view, OA is a "charitable" gesture that is applied only in extreme cases. The reality is that the Great Conversation of science constantly needs it.

The right way to go is OA free for authors and for readers, which means that it must be subsidized. But that is all right because scientific research is subsidized and scientific communication is an integral part of scientific research (and it costs only 1% of the rest of research).

Jean-Claude Guédon

Le 31/03/2020 à 08:28, Stevan Harnad a écrit :
I agree with Peter.

Eric has gone over to the devil.

This is a shameful time for token measures.

Covid-19 is a litmus test for disclosing who are going all out for the public good and who are in it for themselves.

OA used to be for the sake of scientific and scholarly research -- an abstraction, and it did not succeed.

Here it’s about survival.

Stevan Harnad
Editor, Animal Sentience<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fanimalstudiesrepository.org%2Fanimsent%2F&data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd547a0da71564c7fb48108d7d56f0886%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&sdata=u4SeHgBD0Upyemmp4Nf0%2Be9a3nOcKNimsGZ3BY2YhGA%3D&reserved=0>
Professor of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcrcsc.uqam.ca%2F&data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd547a0da71564c7fb48108d7d56f0886%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&sdata=cXNp0TpmsXPsLTCN5AYm8hfmpZmgij7X2Up3%2FNnGjvo%3D&reserved=0>
Adjunct Professor of Cognitive Science, McGill University<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mcgill.ca%2Fpsychology%2Fabout%2Ffaculty-0%2Faffiliate-and-adjunct&data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd547a0da71564c7fb48108d7d56f0886%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&sdata=FirEAYdQS9zIJvZwZOu3TyqInl7b71VCYxIDnoAQ6O4%3D&reserved=0>
Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Southampton<http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/people/harnad>

On Mar 30, 2020, at 6:14 PM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk<mailto:pm286 at cam.ac.uk>> wrote:

On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 7:48 PM Éric Archambault <eric.archambault at science-metrix.com<mailto:eric.archambault at science-metrix.com>> wrote:

Peter,

Two months ago, that is, on January 27, we started work at Elsevier to make available as much as possible of the scholarly literature on coronavirus research easily discoverable and freely accessible.

At 1science, we created the Coronavirus Research Hub:

Why does Elsevier not simply open all its content and let the scientific , medical and citizen community decide what they want? Elsevier can't guess what we want.

The Royal Society has done this. Elsevier can afford to do it.

If we can help further, please let us know, we have been on it for two months and we continue to evaluate options to help the research community.

My colleague, a software developer, working for free on openVirus software,  is spending most of his time working making masks in Cambridge Makespace to ship to Addenbrooke's hospital. When he goes to the literature to find literature on masks, their efficacy and use and construction he finds paywall after paywall after paywall after paywall .... Some are 1-page notes behind a 36 USD Elsevier paywall.

Do not tell us what we want. let us choose freely.

Peter Murray-Rust

Volunteer fighting for free scientific knowledge in a world crisis.

--
"I always retain copyright in my papers, and nothing in any contract I sign with any publisher will override that fact. You should do the same".

Peter Murray-Rust
Reader Emeritus in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dept. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069

_______________________________________________
GOAL mailing list
GOAL at eprints.org<mailto:GOAL at eprints.org>
http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/attachments/20200331/6d39ed89/attachment.html 