Re: Open Access Priorities: Lay Public Access or Researcher Access?

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

      ** Apologies for Cross-Posting **

Peter Suber's is an excellent, ecumenical way of putting it (see 
below). Peter is right and I am wrong:

     SH: Dear Peter, your wise, well-informed comment on my
     comment in OA News (5/7 2006) was terrific!
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#11471969650095782
     Yes, the priorities are: research use primary, lay use secondary;,
     and yes, the public benefits from both, in that order, but it's ok
     for senators to stress the lay use for vote-getting purposes -- as
     long as the Bill itself is loud and clear enough on the priorities
     to be able to block all spurious objections by publishers that imply
     that the primary rationale is lay use rather than research use. You
     have read the Bill fully, whereas I have only skimmed it, so if you
     are satisfied the ammunition is all in there, that's one less thing
     to worry about! (If, in addition, the dual deposit/release plank is
     added too, that takes publishers out of the loop completely.)

     PETER SUBER: Thanks, Stevan. The bill itself certainly doesn't put lay
     readers ahead of researchers. It mandates OA for everyone. It's wrong for
     publishers to assume a lay-reader accent in the bill and it would be
     wrong for us to do so as well. If anything, the bill puts researchers
     first. Here's Section 2, where the bill describes its rationale:

         "Congress finds that the Federal Government funds basic
         and applied research with the expectation that new ideas
         and discoveries that result from the research, if shared and
         effectively disseminated, will advance science and improve the
         lives and welfare of people of the United States and around
         the world" (2.1). [Moreover] "the Internet makes it possible for
         this information to be promptly available to every scientist,
         physician, educator, and citizen at home, in school, or in a
         library" (2.2).

     If the sequence of beneficiaries in the last sentence is roughly in
     priority order, then researchers are first and lay readers last.

     Peter

> From OA News (5/7 2006)

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#11471969650095782

     PETER SUBER:

     (1) I agree with Stevan that the primary beneficiaries of FRPAA, and
     of every similar OA policy, are researchers, and that the benefits
     for lay readers are important but secondary. I've said so whenever
     the question has come up --for the NIH policy, the draft RCUK policy,
     the CURES Act, and now the FRPAA.

     (2) I also agree with Stevan that casting lay readers as the primary
     beneficiaries needlessly opens these policies to publisher objections.

     (3) However, I would distinguish the language of the sponsoring
     Senators from the language of the bill itself. The Senators may
     put researchers and lay readers on a par but there's nothing in
     the substantive provisions of the bill to support or require that
     emphasis. The problem is not with the bill but with some ways of
     pitching the bill.

     (4) I'm also more inclined than Stevan to be lenient with this way
     of pitching the bill, at least for the sponsoring Senators. The bill
     really will make publicly-funded research accessible to the taxpayers
     who paid for it, whether they are professional researchers or lay
     readers, and this really will benefit lay readers, whether these
     benefits are primary or secondary. It's natural, even irresistible,
     for an elected legislator introducing a new bill to point to every
     benefit for every constituent. If we had to choose, I'd rather see
     sponsors of good OA legislation be re-elected than to fine-tune their
     rhetoric in order to disarm every publisher objection. However, we
     don't have to choose. There are ways to point out the benefits for
     lay readers, and still put the accent on the benefits for researchers.

     (5) The FRPAA, like the NIH policy before it, uses the term "public
     access". In opposing the NIH policy, many publishers mistakenly
     assumed that the goal of public access was the goal of access for
     lay readers, and some are already making the same assmption about
     the FRPAA.  We OA advocates shouldn't make the same mistake. "Public"
     doesn't mean "lay public" any more than it means "professional
     public". It means everyone.

----

See also:

     MICHAEL CARROLL:
http://carrollogos.blogspot.com/2006/05/insiders-argument-against-open-access.html

     MICHAEL GEIST:
http://michaelgeist.ca/component/option,com_content/task,view/id,1237/Itemid,85/nsub,/