Re: On the Need to Take Both Roads to Open Access

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003, [Identity Deleted] wrote:

> Stevan,
>
> [Identity Deleted], our electronic resources coordinator, was inspired by
> your quote of 55% of journals allowing self-archiving to ask why we don't
> just go back and retrospectively add that 55% to a University archive.
> [ http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2995.html ]
>
> I have been pushing [Ivy League University, identity deleted] to establish 
> such an archive.  I thought it was a great idea to get a collection of 
> content immediately.  Do you know of other Universities that are doing 
> this and if not, why not?

Thanks for your message. 

(1) The 55% figure comes from the Romeo sample of 7000+ journals, of
which 55% already officially support author/institution self-archiving.
(Many more journals will agree if asked.)
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo/Romeo%20Publisher%20Policies.htm

(2) In most cases the support probably extends to the retrospective legacy
literature as this is not a great source of potential revenue and many
more journals (e.g., Science) already support self-archiving after an
interval -- from 6 months to three years -- after the publication date.

(3) Although making a university's past research output openly accessible
is very valuable and desirable (and doing it is to be strongly
encouraged), making its *current* research output openly accessible is
even more valuable and desirable (and even more strongly to be
encouraged!).

(4) The 55% figure is actually an estimate of the *minimum* amount of
*current* research output that universities can already self-archive
immediately, without the need to make any further request of the
publisher, or any change in the copyright transfer of licensing agreement.
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#copyright1

(5) The challenge with self-archiving (whether current or legacy research
output) is not, and has never been, publishers or copyright. Publishers
will cooperate, in the interests of science and scholarship.
http://www.stm-assoc.org/infosharing/springconference-prog.html

(6) The real challenge is establishing a systematic institutional
self-archiving policy that will ensure the speedy self-archiving of
research output. The library can help
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#libraries-do especially by offering a
proxy self-archiving service e.g.
http://eprints.st-andrews.ac.uk/proxy_archive.html but it is the
university and its departments that need to strongly encourage or even
mandate self-archiving by its researchers
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/archpolnew.html their policy
backed up by the research funding agencies
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue35/harnad/

But going after retrospective research is a good idea too. I hope
universities that have been implementing this will reply and share their
experience.

Stevan Harnad