Re: Usage of Open Access articles

[Joseph Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com>]

If the increased use of scholarly materials is not among the benefits of
Open Access, as I contend, then what are the benefits?  I found the
comments on this thread to be very helpful, as is Stevan Harnad's comment
that was not appended to this thread, though I am more skeptical of
Harnad's position.  If I understand the underlying economic theory of
Harnad's position, one implication is that 97% of the world's computer
users work with Macs.

But what are the benefits?  The primary benefit, at least at this time, is
that it has put publishers on their toes.  While some publishers continue
to hold the OA movement in contempt (never a good posture), most are
taking steps to ward off the inroads of OA.  OA is already serving to
moderate pricing (some would argue with this proposition), it has
accelerated electronic publishing initiatives, and it is a factor in
assessing the launch of new journals and the acquisition of companies.  
OA has triggered an interest on publishers' parts in innovation.  This may
be small potatoes to OA purists, but the fact is that the landscape looks
very different from what it was even three years ago. OA gets at lest part
of the credit for this.  And Stevan Harnad, with whom I don't always
agree, surely deserves the credit for being the most influential force in
the publishing industry today, and not just in research publications, all
his protestations to the contrary.  Indeed, one possible outcome is that
the publishers who read this thread will hasten to get their usage numbers
up, creating an arms' race with OA publications.  Surely authors will not
complain about being fought over in this manner.

Joe Esposito

On 6/23/05, Steve Hitchcock <sh94r@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:

> At 00:21 23/06/2005, Joseph Esposito wrote:
> >There are many reasons to support OA, but increased use of scholarly
> >materials is not among them.
> 
> Open access will *always* increase usage. That is the whole point. It
> benefits authors (more readings, more citations) and it benefits
> everyone who wishes to use an OA paper. Everything else flows from this.
> 
> How can I be sure that any OA paper will get more usage, certainly no
> less usage, than if it were not OA, even against the publishers'
> Google-dependent marketing juggernaut that Joe sees in prospect (quite
> how long it's taken people to realise this is another matter)? Because
> any OA version of a paper is in ADDITION to the peer-reviewed published
> version. So the authors with some foresight get the benefits of OA and
> the publisher's marketing efforts.
> 
> It's a simple point - open access AND publish not OR publish - that is
> often overlooked, but OA is so much more understandable once you get it.
> 
> Steve Hitchcock
> IAM Group, School of Electronics and Computer Science
> University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
> Email: sh94r@ecs.soton.ac.uk
> Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 3256    Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865