Drubbing Peter to Pay Paul

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

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, alison.macdonald@britishlibrary.net wrote:

> I thought readers of the list might be interested to see the response
> (below) by Lord Sainsbury of Turville (UK Minister for Science and
> Innovation) in the Financial Times of 10th November 2004, to the Financial
> Times' editorial comment of 9th November (below Sainsbury letter) on the
> open access question.
> 
> Alison Macdonald
> Digital Archiving Consultancy
> Twickenham, UK
> 
> <<Open access is not only science publishing model
> 
> By David Sainsbury Published: November 10 2004 02:00 | Last updated:
> November 10 2004 02:00 From Lord Sainsbury of Turville.
    http://news.ft.com/cms/s/f818ab64-32bd-11d9-8498-00000e2511c8.html
    http://news.ft.com/cms/s/98f16604-31f4-11d9-97c0-00000e2511c8.html

Is it not obvious even to readers of this list that this is all just
drubbing Peter to pay Paul? The only major recommendation of the UK Select
Committee was to mandate OA self-archiving. Yet no one (MPs, press,
publishers or librarians) can stop going on and on about OA publishing,
which was *not* what was being mandated!

All 3 committee recommendations -- the one major one, to mandate OA
self-archiving, plus the 2 minor ones (to (1) encourage "experimenting"
with OA publishing and to (2) provide some funds for authors who wish to
publish in OA journals) -- were turned down, all on the basis of arguments
against OA publishing. And everyone -- from Lord S. on up and down --
still keeps yammering only about OA publishing!

Let the next parliamentary recommendation be shorter and clearer, make no
mention whatsoever of Paul (OA publishing), and then maybe this time Peter
will stand a better chance!

(Or can we just not *resist* provoking a good fight with publishers every
time, and having a good moan about library budgets, and a royal go at
economic reform? Can we, in other words, not keep in mind that *access* is
what this is all about, and that even affordability would become a minor
matter if only the access needs were fully taken care of -- as they would
be if all articles were made OA through self-archiving?)

    "The UK report, press coverage, and the Green and Gold Roads to Open
    Access"
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3871.html

Stevan Harnad

> Sir, In your editorial on open-access publishing ("Open access", November
> 9) you seem to misunderstand both the government's position and the nature
> of open-access publishing.
> 
> As was made very clear in our response to the Commons science committee,
> the government is very happy to see users of research in this country
> having a choice between traditional "subscriber pays" publishing and
> open-access publishing. That is why it is making certain that there is a
> level playing-field by encouraging the research councils to support
> scientists wanting to take the open-access route.
> 
> What the government does not think is right to do is to promote one model,
> open-access publishing, in the marketplace. It is not clear that on a
> like-for-like basis open-access publishing will have a lower cost base,
> and as it will transfer some of the payments from industry users to the
> authors, it is likely to lead to higher costs for universities and
> research institutes. Also, because Britain produces 5.3 per cent of
> articles in the world's science journals while accounting for only 3.5 per
> cent of subscriptions, we would also lose out as a country.
> 
> The government believes that providing a level playing-field and giving
> users a choice is the best way to avoid arbitrarily giving either kind of
> publishing an advantage. David Sainsbury, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of
> State for Science and Innovation, Department of Trade and Industry, London
> SW1H 0ET>>