Re: Homer Simpson at the NIH

[David Goodman <dgoodman@princeton.edu>]

OA is intended to make material available. The emphasis is on 
making important material available to everyone. The true social 
harm is in limiting access to this material, and therefore the 
only acceptable way to disseminate major scientific information 
is by free universal access.  As you agree, no form of OA is a 
threat to good journals.

It is highly likely that the third and fourth rate journals will 
be forced to find a much more economical manner of publication to 
survive. I hope this will be the case--I regard it as one of the 
benefits. It would be folly to continue to subsidize them at the 
present rate; for the OA movement to be diverted into an attempt 
to protect such publications would be a waste of resources all 
around.  If they cannot adapt, the material itself can be 
published in a more economical manner.  I cannot see how this 
would be harmful; there is nothing sacred or indispensable about 
the conventional journal form of publication.

I am the member of a editorial board of a relatively minor 
journal, but one of value in its niche. It would be better to 
publish it in a less formal manner than to continue to publish it 
with restricted access, and the publisher knows how I feel.

David Goodman, Ph.D., M.L.S.
dgoodman@princeton.edu

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>
Date: Monday, August 6, 2007 1:35 am
Subject: Re: Homer Simpson at the NIH
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu

> Chuck,
>
> There is evidence that free access leads to cancellations of 
> subscriptions, but the publishers who experience these 
> cancellations are understandably reluctant to discuss them, as 
> it could lead to a cascade of cancellations. Try this for an 
> announcement:  "Since we made part of our material open access, 
> we have seen our subscriptions drop.  Here is a list of 
> institutions that no longer subscribe.  Why doesn't your 
> library join the bandwagon?"
>
> Cancellations take place at the margin, not the center.  No one 
> is going to cancel Science or Nature.  What's at risk are 
> second- and primarily third-tier publications, and they only 
> become at risk when a library approaches the limit of its 
> budget.  Since a library will always want to purchase more than 
> it can afford to, the question becomes which publications to 
> take, which to reject. The first-tier publications get in 
> easily, but journals outside the elite circle may not be so 
> lucky.  If a librarian sees that a third-tier journal is wholly 
> available in open access 12 months after publication, that 
> journal may get cancelled in favor of a journal of comparable 
> quality that has no open access policy. It is immaterial 
> whether that policy is mandated by the NIH or any other body. 
> OA, in other words, is but one of many things that could tip 
> matters in the direction of cancellation for certain 
> publications.  Other tipping factors may include the 
> availability of a journal through an online aggregator such as 
> ProQuest.
>
> Of course, someone may say, Who cares if OA is only having a 
> negative impact on third-tier journals?  Good point, but this 
> undermines the entire rationale for OA, which is to make MORE 
> material available.  Since libraries buy the good stuff first, 
> OA can only mean making more materials of inferior quality 
> available.  I won't engage the question of what makes a journal 
> first-tier, second-tier, whatever.  Librarians know, and they 
> make well-informed discriminations.
>
> A couple-three years ago I made a presentation on this topic at 
> a HighWire client conference.  To judge by the number of 
> requests I got afterward for copies of the slides, I think the 
> presentation struck a chord with the distinguished society 
> publishers in attendance.  They know what is happening to them. 
> Many of them are fortunate that their publications are 
> comfortably in the first tier and thus secure.
>
> Another aspect of OA after an embargo is that it makes it hard 
> to introduce new products unless you can put them into a Big 
> Deal. New journals start at the margin, right where librarians 
> are studying their expenditures very carefully.  Thus OA 
> militates against editorial innovation, even as it favors the 
> largest, most successful publishers.
>
> The problem with OA is simply that it is good intentions but 
> bad economics. Of all the forms of OA, the very worst is what 
> the NIH is proposing, the catch-and-release variety, as it 
> conceals the pernicious aspect of not requiring that people 
> allocate resources--time, energy, money--in consumption.
>
> Joe Esposito
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Hamaker, Charles" <cahamake@uncc.edu>
> To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2007 8:34 AM
> Subject: RE: Homer Simpson at the NIH
>
>> But there still isn't any evidence that free access to 
>> published articles outside the journal impacts journal 
>> subscription base. In my experience with researchers, for 
>> citation purposes they must have access to the original 
>> article. Would citation of the NIH copy be sufficient for 
>> documentation purposes in an article? Would norms of citation 
>> change that much? I can't believe it would be sufficient for 
>> that purpose. If it can't be substituted for the actual 
>> journal article, where's the competition with the original. Or 
>> am I misunderstanding something fundamental about the 
>> proposal? The notification use of the article gets enhanced, 
>> the citation stays with the original-no? Or are publishers 
>> arguing that for citation purposes the NIH copy will be 
>> sufficient?
>>
>> Chuck Hamaker
>> Associate University Librarian Collections and Technical Services
>> Atkins Library
>> University of North Carolina Charlotte
>> Charlotte, NC 28223