Re: UK select committee response to government on OA

["Sally Morris" <chief-exec@alpsp.org>]

Apologies for cross-posting, but the misunderstandings should be corrected

Peter Suber has misread the report.  It is the Government's response to
the Committee (plus the OFT's response), not the other way round.  The
comments in bold (which are all that Peter quotes) are the substantive
points in the Committee's previous response, and are included in order
that the Government can give its response point by point.  The Government
has not changed its position, but has simply reiterated it.

Stevan Harnad also misreads it.  There is no Government 'polemic' whatever
in the report;  the Government focuses on issues such as the treatment of
the JISC response, and the author-pays model of OA, because those are the
points in the Committee's response which they are addressing.

The Guardian columnist Richard Wray misinterpreted even more egregiously,
in seeing a shift in Government policy towards OA publishing!  As I
mentioned above, the Government view is simply reiterated.

Moral - read carefully for yourself!

[MOD NOTE:  In a subsequent message, Sally wrote the following 
clarificaiton:]

I must apologise - although Peter Suber's initial posting about the
Government response was back-to-front, he subsequently corrected that (in
the very message to which I was responding!).  However, I think Stevan's
and the Guardian's misreadings remain uncorrected

_____


Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
E-mail:  chief-exec@alpsp.org