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Re: Information Access Alliance Urges DOJ & FTC to Explore Remedies

Jan:

"Lots of readers"? Oh, come on. Aren't we talking about highly specialized research? Or does anyone seriously believe that someone is going to turn off "Scrubs" to download a few article on High Energy Physics from arXiv?

I suppose your comments are literally correct, in that a huge number of readers would have access to the OA documents. But would they read them? This is reminiscent of the scene in Shakespeare (quoting from memory), where one figure claims to be able to call spirits from the deep; to which the reply is, If you call them, will they come?

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "JOHANNES VELTEROP" <velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: Information Access Alliance Urges DOJ & FTC to Explore Remedies

Anthony,

You're asking too much here, if you want open access to cure all the world's ills before you'd accept it. And the trade-off is not between some authors not being able to publish and lots of readers not being able to have access. The trade-off is between some authors perhaps not being able to pay for formal publication and lots of readers not being able to have access. Authors can virtually always publish their stuff, albeit informally. Besides, perhaps author-side payment is eventually not the best way anyway to achieve large scale open access.

What about a system whereby institutions pay a 'contribution' to keep the journals that they value 'in the air' as it were? Such contributions could be tailored to the profile (in terms of size and subjects covered, for teaching and/or research, etc.) and readers' and authors' needs with regard to the journals in question. A transition to a system that would support open access is bound to be difficult, to be sure. But if the energy now used for the futile exercise of fighting the future could be redirected to efforts to find solutions, then we would be making progress already, even if it doesn't immediately result in open access in all disciplines for all the journal literature.

The bottom line is that the money now being spent on the scientific literature can be spent so much better, so much more optimally with regard to what the function of the journal literature for the scientific enterprise is in the first place, when that money somehow 'buys' open access rather than subscriptions.

Jan Velterop

----- Original Message ----
From: Anthony Watkinson anthony.watkinson@btopenworld.com
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Sent: Tuesday, 13 February, 2007 11:54:19 PM
Subject: Re: Information Access Alliance Urges DOJ & FTC to Explore
Remedies for Journal Bundling: Comments Available on Web

There are a lot of assertions here. Until an Open Access advocate (believer) can explain to me how a system of author (or proxy) payment can be made efficient or fair and not prevent some authors from publishing, I remain to be convinced. And, as we see from their behaviour (never mind surveys) this is the view of most of the academic community

Anthony