Re: Alma Swan on Open Access in American Scientist (the journal)

[Rosalind Reid <reid@AMSCI.ORG>]

Just to reinforce Stevan's point:

PDF download is a convenience that we "sell" to nonmembers to 
support operation of American Scientist Online, thus enabling 
most of the magazine's content to be made available barrier-free 
in HTML. We give each author a copy of the PDF and do not 
restrict the author's use of it. Exception: We advise that when a 
PDF contains material (such as commercial photography or fine 
art) belonging to a third party, additional permissions may be 
required.

In fact, I'm happy to say that transfer of copyright to Sigma Xi 
is voluntary, and we allow authors to retain whatever rights are 
important to them. Publishers don't have to dictate these things, 
even though standardized publishing agreements are the norm in 
journal publishing and are generally easier to administer.

Rosalind Reid
Editor, American Scientist


On Apr 5, 2007, at 1:23 PM, Stevan Harnad wrote:

> On Thu, 5 Apr 2007, Sylvan Katz wrote:
>
> Alma Swan's article "Open Access and the Progress of Science" 
> has just appeared in American Scientist (the journal) May-June 
> Issue 2007:
> 
> http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/55131
>
> I had a good laugh when I read the article about open-access 
> and then tried to download the pdf file to my archive for 
> reference ONLY to receive the message
>
> "If you are an active member of Sigma Xi, please log in now to 
> download this PDF for free. If you are an American Scientist 
> subscriber, log in now to proceed with your order request. 
> Subscribers pay $5 per PDF. Public users pay $12 per PDF. Click 
> here to proceed with your download as a public user."
>
> The irony was just too much!

But there is no irony at all!

Open Access means free access online.

You accessed the entire article (html version, in three pieces), 
freely, online at the AmSci's own website.

In addition, Alma Swan, an advocate of self-archiving, will no 
doubt self-archive the article in her Institutional Repository.

The fact that the American Scientist (a subscription-based 
journal, not a Gold OA journal) does not give away its PDF for 
free is not an irony, and is not a handicap, as long as AmSci 
does not try to prevent Alma from self-archiving (and it does 
not).

Hence the version you read free on the AmSci site is in fact a 
*bonus*, not an irony!

Stevan Harnad

PS You could, of course, have downloaded the HTML version you 
accessed! (There are still *profound* misunderstandings about the 
true power and potential of the online medium -- and of what 
comes with the territory, when you make a text OA.)