Re: Surveys, self-archiving, and what authors want to do

[Janellyn P Kleiner <jkleiner@lsu.edu>]

Since this question is not going to be resolved any time soon, why don't
we open discussion on some other OA matters posed in this CHE article that
I believe has been cited here before:

http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i24/24b01301.htm

If institutions require faculty to post their articles or deposit them in
their or another repository, they will do it. If it becomes part of
"publish or perish", there will be nothing to debate. Without some solid
reasons for contributing to OA repositories, it's possible many won't
bother ---- unless we who participate in some small way in scholarly
publishing begin to market OA agressively.  And, explore other aspects of
OA.  Or, even better, develop a reasonable alternative to OA.

Frankly, other than the fact that journal publishing is a rather important
industry, I really don't see the need for scholarly journals in the near
future.  And I'm speaking not only as a librarian but as a former
journalist with undergraduate/graduate degrees and practical experience in
mass communication.  The decrease in newspapers and in large circulation
magazines saddens me, but electronic publishing is faster & cheaper from a
business point of view. You don't need the number of people or natural
resources needed for print.  It also requires a fraction of the physical
space and space is becoming increasingly valuable with growing
populations.

We look to journals as a model because that's our tradition. What about
electronic "communities of scholars" replacing journals?  Article-based
scholar communities. This is being explored successfully in a few of the
sciences but there's still resistance to that concept -- some valid some
not. My only excuse for such ideas is that I've always been something of a
futurist with more interest in what's ahead than clinging to traditions or
the past.

There are some interesting questions in the CHE article. I toss those out
as some avenues worthy of discussion. Any other alternatives?

Jane Kleiner
Associate Dean of Libraries for Collection Services
The LSU Libraries
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Phone: 225-578-2217
Fax: 225-578-6825
E-Mail: jkleiner@lsu.edu


Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>@lists.yale.edu on 02/24/2005
02:20:02 PM
To:    liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
cc:     (bcc: Janellyn P Kleiner/jkleiner/LSU)
Subject:    Re: Surveys, self-archiving, and what authors want to do

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 cmorgan@wiley.co.uk wrote:

> Alma Swan may claim that the survey is rigorous and meaningful, but its
> objectivity is rather undermined by the following introductory sentence:
>
> "Studies show that open access increases the impact of - and number of
> citations to - work made accessible in this way."
>
> Even if we set aside the contentiousness of the statement, it surely has
> no place in an introduction to an objective survey of authors' attitudes
> since it is leading the witness.
>
> If you are asking for someone's opinion about something, surely you
> don't start off by making any claims as to the positive (or negative)
> aspects of the issue that you are surveying?
>
> Cliff Morgan, Chair, Serial Publishers Executive
> Academic and Professional Division of the Publishers Association

Very interesting observation. To see the how Cliff Morgan's vested
interests and wishful thinking might just be influencing his own
objectivity on the subject of surveys, consider the following (with
apologies for putting such a lurid turn on it, but sometimes it's
necessary in order to shake people into thinking seriously):

If one were doing a survey on the actual *practises* of smokers, as well
as their *attitudes* towards those facts (not their opinions as to what
those facts might be!), would one be undermining the objectivity of one's
survey by introducing it as arising from the *fact* that smoking causes
lung cancer?

As to the "contentiousness" of the statement that open access increases
impact, I suggest that Cliff have a good look at the growing number of
empirical studies of this phenomenon, all of which agree on the outcome.
That is better than to bury one's head in the sand, and hope the facts
will go away, or that researchers can and should be kept in pristine
ignorance of them as long as possible (as I don't doubt the tobacco
companies would have quite liked to do, in the name of objectivity, as
well as not undermining opinions with facts):

    Bibliography of OA Advantage Data
    http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html

Stevan Harnad