Re: Open access in Europe

[Liblicense-L Listowner <liblicen@pantheon.yale.edu>]

Before the "attack" messages come swarming in and saying that my comments
about access to collections and content in European libraries are totally
missing the point about the benefits of full and complete open access to
all the literature everywhere all the time, please let me be clear that
*my message was about how much better it would be if European [and other]
research libraries, libraries funded *by taxpayers,* were far more
accessible to students and researchers than currently they seem to be.*

Our visitors and foreign interns marvel that they can get privileges to
enter many US library stacks, for example; can read our materials; freely
use many collections in all kinds of media (including the 40,000 or so
ejournals and 700 databases and 1/2 million or more e-books that we make
available at campus computers).  This is surely a good thing and would be
even better if multiplied over and over in all world libraries.

I did not say that this is *identical* to open access, that it solves all
information needs -- but I do affirm that it is a much better form of
access than is currently available in many libraries and that we as a
profession should work harder to try to change this.  Our academic friends
could be really helpful in this matter as well.  How about it?

Thank you (and now ducking to avoid the slings and arrows), Ann