Re: Mandating OA around the corner?

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@worldnet.att.net>]

I believe that the debate between David Goodman and Stevan Harnad is an
important one, as it exposes a rift among advocates for Open Access.  To
summarize:  Goodman holds that among the many virtues of OA is the
opportunity to reduce the costs borne by libraries; Harnad holds that OA
is a good thing in and of itself and that advocates of OA should not get
distracted by reaching for cost-savings.  Elsewhere I have noted that I
don't agree with Goodman at all, that OA will significantly increase the
cost of research publications, perhaps by a factor of 10.  (And this is
why I support OA:  I am a publisher and see huge commercial opportunities
in OA.)  The Harnad view ignores the fact that research publications have
many constituencies:  to say that published research is for researchers is
like saying that the law is only for lawyers or that doctors should only
practice medicine on themselves (actually, this may not be such a bad
idea).

The real problem with Harnadian OA (author self-archiving, for example) is
that it doesn't work *for authors.* This is the key point.  It is authors
who have a huge stake in the status quo, as the journals they publish in
are the means of determining professional advancement.  In effect, the
academic community has outsourced the credentialling process to the likes
of John Wiley and Reed Elsevier, and the very bright people at Wiley and
Reed would be fools not to have taken advantage of this.  If OA in any
form undermines the credentialling process by weakening the role of the
traditional publishers, authors will suffer.  To my knowledge, a widely
accepted credentialling system that does not require publication in
prominent journals has not yet arisen.

As for the argument that OA will not endanger journal subscriptions, well,
surely many librarians will be disappointed to hear this.  I admire the
"damn the torpedoes" aspect of the self-archiving movement, but it is not
my ship that is likely to get sunk.

What we should expect to see emerging is a new group of services that
enhance self-archiving and institutional archives, services whose aim is
to increase the prominence of an author's work.  Such services will
attract capital, and capital will demand its return.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stevan Harnad" <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 4:50 PM
Subject: RE: Mandating OA around the corner?

> On Tue, 13 Jul 2004, David Goodman wrote:
>
> > Stevan, I do not think it possible to "disentangle the serials budget
> > problem from the access/impact problem."
>
> It is most definitely possible -- and necessary -- to disentangle them.
> What is linking them inextricably in what you write below is only your
> very own speculations! You are reading out what you yourself have read in.
> Let us leave speculation and theory aside, deal with the here and now, and
> it will be obvious that the serials budget problem and the access/impact
> problem are distinct problems, and that the latter can be solved, 100%,
> through self-archiving, without addressing the former at all.

[SNIP]

> > Fortunately, many others are interested in sustainability, will discuss
> > it, and will plan for it. Librarians in particular are quite accustomed
> > to being left to deal with the practical details of maintaining and
> > preserving the scholarly communications system.
>
> Let those who are concerned with (1) the sustainability of the current
> journal publication system occupy themselves with that. Let those who are
> concerned with (2) the preservation of proprietary digital content
> (including subscribed/licensed journal content) occupy themselves with
> that. And let those who are concerned with (3) the preservation of
> supplementary self-archived OA versions of that same proprietary digital
> content occupy themselves with that.
>
> And let those who are concerned with (4) putting an end to needless
> access/impact loss by *providing* the supplementary self-archived OA
> versions (with which the supplement-preservationsts, (3), can then concern
> themselves) go ahead and do what it takes to generate that 100% OA,
> unencumbered by all these other irrelevant agendas, and the speculations
> that drive them (or hold them back).
>
> Stevan Harnad