RE: "Accepted Manuscript"

["Joseph Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

Sandy,

Let's be consistent here.  Harvard and MIT are private 
institutions.  What they do is their business.  We insist that 
they comply with the law.  But beyond that?  I think it unseemly 
to tell these institutions that they should do this or that.  I 
would as soon tell my neighbor that I don't like her drapes (I 
hope she is not on this list).

The NIH is a different matter.  It is a governmental institution, 
and we all have a right to tell the leadership what they should 
do.  And we all do.

Joe Esposito

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sandy Thatcher
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 3:49 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: "Accepted Manuscript"

Which is exactly why I worry about initiatives like Harvard's and MIT's.
Many people who are not familiar with the terminology or the practices that
are now being pursued will wrongly assume that the posted version is the
same as the published one and will rely on it when citing it in further
scholarship, repeating errors that might have been caught in the copyediting
or quoting material that was later edited to be more clearly expressed. This
can really hurt scholarship as much as it helps dissemination.
There is a tradeoff here. Am I the only one who worries about this?

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press


>This version terminology question is a fascinating one.  Imagine how an
>author must feel when asked to navigate through a thicket that not even
>top scholarly communication professionals can neatly traverse. What
>version can he/she deposit in a repository or on a personal page while
>staying within the bounds a publisher's copyright agreement?
>
>Or picture the confusion within the mind of a researcher, perhaps an
>undergraduate or graduate student, as he/she struggles to determine
>whether the paper just downloaded from Google is the "actual article"
>or some lesser version.  We have created a bit of a bog here, an
>unfortunate byproduct of a perhaps noble attempt to increase access to
>information.  Efforts such as the NISO/ALPSP Working Group on Journal
>Article Versions are a good attempt to bring clarity to the issue, but
>I can't imagine the harried author or the inexperienced researcher has
>any real grasp of the definitional subtleties at this point.
>
>Ideally, we would consider affixing a canned definition on these
>repository files (e.g., "The following paper is the 'Accepted
>Manuscript' version.  It has been accepted for publication in a
>journal. Content and layout, follow publisher's submission
>requirements.").  However, I am not at all confident we can (a) get
>posting authors to understand the subtle distinctions between versions,
>and (b) get them to care enough to take the extra effort.  We are thus
>left with the prospect of adding another administrative level to the
>depositing protocol if we want to "fix" this.
>
>Best, Greg
>
>Greg Tananbaum
>Consulting Services at the Intersection of Technology, Content, &
>Academia
>(510) 295-7504
>greg@scholarnext.com
>http://www.scholarnext.com