<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra">On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 6:55 PM, Arthur Sale <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ahjs@ozemail.com.au" target="_blank">ahjs@ozemail.com.au</a>></span> wrote:</div><div class="gmail_extra">
<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-AU" link="blue" vlink="purple"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">At a severe risk of offending Stevan, I write to say that my University has practised an almost-OA policy for at least 15 years that falls into neither the Green nor Gold category....</span><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125);font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> we offer a free (to the researcher) automated document delivery service to any researcher... for an article we do not subscribe to. </span></p>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div style>No offence at all!</div><div style><br></div><div style>But individual article access via <a href="https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=cr&ei=q9A3UsyqMcjgyQHitICAAw#q=amsci+(subscription+license+pay-per-view)+harnad">pay-to-view</a> (e.g., interlibrary loan) -- like subscription access and license access -- are simply variants of the <i>toll access,</i> in contrast with which "open access" was coined and to remedy which the OA movement was launched. It's toll access no matter who is paying the access tolls. And OA means toll-free online access.</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>There's nothing "almost-OA" about any kind of toll access. The button is almost-OA because although it may not be immediate, and although it may not be certain, it is certainly toll-free.</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>But none of this has anything to do with the Green/Gold distinction, which is about whether the toll-free access is provided by the author (Green) or the journal (Gold).</div><div style><br>
</div><div style>(I'm sure Arthur won't do it, but I hope no one else will come back with "but the Gold OA APC is a toll, so Gold OA is toll-access too." For pedants we could write out "toll-access" as "access-toll to the user or to the user's institution." When an author (or his institution) pays to <i>publish</i> (whether Gold-OA or non-OA) the payment is not a user access toll. Everyone agrees that the true expenses of publishing have to be paid by someone. But only subscription/licence/pay-per-view pays them via access tolls, denying access if the toll are not paid. Gold OA does not. And for Green OA, subscriptions -- while they remain sustainable -- have already paid the publication costs, so Green OA is just supplementary access, for those whose institutions can't afford the subscription toll. -- What the "true expense" of publishing is is another matter. By my lights, we won't know till universal Green OA has prevailed. And I'm betting they will turn out to be just the cost of implementing peer review.)</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-AU" link="blue" vlink="purple"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125);font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">There is a delay sure, but it is the same delay as the Request-A-Copy button, and more certain. </span></p>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div style>Agreed that paid pay-per-view is more certain than the button (just as paid subscription access and paid licensed access are). Bur I would not be sure they're both equally delayed: In principle, a user could click a request and the author could click to comply within one minute of one another, if they are both at their keyboards. (Unlikely if one is in Oz!) </div>
<div style><br></div><div style>I'd also say that the uncertainty as to whether the author will comply is rather small...</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div lang="EN-AU" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:10.5pt">These issues are complex. The subscription decisions we make in libraries are binary (either your subscribe or you don't), but the criteria we have to use in making those decisions are not binary—we're typically considering multiple criteria (relevance, price, cost per download, demonstrated demand, etc.) that exist on a continuum. One thing is for certain, though: the more a journal's content is available for free, and the quicker it becomes available for free, the less likely it is that we'll maintain a subscription. I think that's the only rational position to take when there are so many journals out there that our faculty want, and that we're not subscribing to because we're out of money.</span></p>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div style>Agreed.</div><div style><br></div><div style>But the point of contention was not about cancelling journals based on what percentage of their content was Green OA but about cancelling journals <i>if their publishers do not embargo Green OA</i>. </div>
<div style><br></div><div style><b>Stevan Harnad</b></div></div><br></div></div>