RE: Open Access in Europe

["Mcsean, Tony (ELS)" <T.Mcsean@elsevier.com>]

The tradition exists in the UK, but my strong impression is that it has
withered over my 30 years as a librarian and in practice there is no wide
equivalent of the system of access to state university access.  There has
been tremendous pressure in the UK on libraries in general and workspace
in particular.

When the UK had retail price control on books, access used to be backed,
at least in theory, by an arrangement giving libraries a 10% discount in
return for letting in all bona fide enquirers.  I know from experience
that in at least one university this was honoured in a pretty
mealy-mouthed way - forms to be filled in and returned on Coptic holidays
and full moons only, that sort of thing - but many other libraries took a
pride in offering access. My guess is that an assured and persistent
walk-in can still talk her or his way into a lot of UK university
libraries. I know from my time running the library in a private
professional association that the plausible, the charming and the grimly
needy would often talk their way past the duty librarian, and like most
experienced managers I was carefully selective in what I noticed.

However, it is true that in Europe great libraries are often effectively
closed to the public, which makes Elsevier's policy of licensing
ScienceDirect use to everyone within the subscribing library's premises
that bit less effective.  Many of the great cities maintain major public
reference libraries and there is a universal and long-established ILL
network; both help to broaden access, but in essence I would say your
analysis is accurate.

Tony McSe�n
Director of Library Relations
Elsevier
+44 7795 960516
+44 1865 843630

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Ann Okerson
Sent: 17 February 2005 23:21
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Open Access in Europe

A colleague and I (Dale Askey, our German & Scandinavian Studies library
specialist) exchanged a message or two about why OA seems a particularly
strong topic in Europe.  He makes some interesting points below about
diversity of cultures and practices, which seem worth sharing:

o Universities in some countries may have different publication
requirements for tenure than do American ones, so they may not have as
strong a concern for publishing in refereed journals as we do, hence some
possible additional enthusiasm for self-archiving.

o Another big element is that the populace generally doesn't have the same
access to scholarly resources that we have in the US.

He goes on, "It struck me during someone's talk the other day that
"reasonable access," i.e.- after six or twelve months, is a worthwhile
goal, and moreso, those in the US with a grain of initiative can have the
same access as a researcher if they head to their nearest academic
library.  If the local private university bars them at the door [note:  
Yale does not!] they can head to the nearest state school's library."

The tradition of widest public access in libraries does serve us well here
in the US and Canada, whereas we hear from many traveling researchers and
students that access in/to European libraries is often very difficult or
not generally permitted.  Is there a way in which such libraries could
open up access to library premisesmore broadly, to provide more access to
content in both print and "walk-in" electronic?  At Yale Library, we have
been fortunate to host European library interns and fellows from time to
time and send them home resolutely determined to change library access
conditions in their home countries.  Opening up our libraries in this way
would get us away from what seems the unhappy position of not wanting to
pay for research funded by taxpayers, while those same taxpayers also fund
the libraries they can't easily use.

Or is this unrealistic?

Sincerely, Ann Okerson/Yale Library