Re: On the Need to Take Both Roads to Open Access

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

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003, Kathleen Shearer wrote:

> We have also discussed this option as one strategy for accumulating a
> baseline of content in our repositories. However, it was assumed that
> one would have to seek permission first from each author, and this could
> become very time consuming...

The proposal here is for the author's own institutional library to
self-archive (by proxy) the author's articles published in the 55% of
refereed journals that already officially support self-archiving.

A splendid idea, both for past and present articles. Yes, it would of
course require the authors' permission (this is *self*-archiving, after
all, even if by proxy) but authors will certainly be happy to give the
permission for the sake of the enhanced visibility and impact, and it
should be possible to set it up on a blanket institutional basis, based on
university and departmental policy.

> Does anyone know whether author permission would be required for this?

It would not be time-consuming at all if set up as a blanket university
policy and agreement: "We will archive for you all of the articles you
publish in the 55% of journals that already officially support
self-archiving." In most cases, however, the easiest way to do this will
be to get the digital file from the author. (Note that not all the
publishers that support self-archiving agree to let their own PDF be used:
The author's version may need to be used in some cases.)

> It does seem like a good way to get some content into the repository in
> the initial stages. The idea being that one could then showcase a
> "working" repository to the faculty members when encouraging them to
> begin self-archiving.

Indeed. But there's no reason for this proxy self-archiving to be limited
to old articles: The 55% applies as much to articles appearing now, or to
appear. It will also be easy to get the digital versions of the more
recent articles from the authors. (This should be part of the blanket
institutional self-archiving policy.)

Stevan Harnad