RE: Institutional Open Access Membership : a better way

["David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>]

The point of publishing papers not separately, but in a journal, is that
they share common characteristics: they have the same standards of review,
they can be accessed similarly, and the journal name is a convenient
mnemonic.

To have different articles in the same journal accessed differently
defeats these virtues. Upon finding an article in an index, one wants to
read it; a frequent user will remember if there is a subscription, any
user can consult the catalog. Upon remembering that something was
published in JASIST in the last year, one can easily find and read it.  
But when the articles are accessed differently, this fails. To have the
computer linking system such as sfx work properly for such a journal
requires encoding each article. To have a catalog give an intelligible
list, it must show a variant of "some articles available
electronically--try and see for yourself."  And obvously, the recent
proposals for required OA will further spread this problem. It's as
confusing as less than 100% self-archiving: some articles will be
available by self-archiving--try and find them--at least here there are
tools being developed.

I can understand, however, why a publisher, especially the publisher of a
single journal, may find that providing OA only to some articles the only
safe path, and feel it sufficient that all the articles will be OA in 6
months or so--varying of course by journal.

I propose an alternative: let the publisher publish the immediate OA
articles in one journal, and the others in a separate related one. The
journal's prestige will cover both, and readers and computers will know
what to expect.  In other words, PNAS-for-all, and PNAS-for-some. I
propose these names with a smile; I am sure that cleverer people than I
will devise better. A similar method will serve the journals that need to
meet the forthcoming NIH requirements: Journal of Postmolecular Biology
(NIH), and Journal of Postmolecular Biology (nonNIH). (My invention, but
it sounds like a good name.)

I do not think this the best solution: 100% OA journals is the best
solution, and 100% OA archiving the second best. But this would help us
bridge the gap.

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From:	owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of Kendall, George
Sent:	Wed 8/4/2004 9:54 PM
Subject:  Institutional Open Access Membership

The benefits of open access to the scientific literature are obvious and
unassailable, and this year we instituted an open access option for
authors.

We also believe that it is essential to involve institutions in open
access for its long-term viability, and beginning in 2005, each PNAS
Institutional Site License will automatically include an Institutional
Open Access Membership. Corresponding authors from institutions with 2005
Site Licenses/Open Access Memberships will receive a 25% discount off our
Open Access Fee (regularly $1000) to make their papers immediately free
online. We offer this plan without increasing our site license rates over
2004.

A number of librarians have told us that they support this new initiative,
and we hope that it will provide an incentive for institutions to adopt
site licenses, to which we have given added value. Please help us inform
authors at your institution about the PNAS Open Access Option and the 2005
Site License/Open Access Membership discount. PNAS is a break-even
operation and relies about equally on author fees and on subscription fees
to cover its operating costs.

The 2005 PNAS site license rates are at www.pnas.org/subscriptions
<outbind://17/www.pnas.org/subscriptions> .
Sincerely,

Ken Fulton, Publisher
PNAS