Self-Archiving vs. Open Archive vs. Archives (Fair-Use/Schmair-Use)

["Peter Hirtle" <pbh6@cornell.edu>]

The exchange we are having points out the problem of adopting 
terms.  What makes sense in Stevan Harnard's community makes no 
sense when it is applied to other communities - and thus leads to 
non-productive confusion.

When I speak of "archives," for example, it is as an archivist. 
For my community, a term like "self-archiving" is an oxymoron - 
because an archives by definition is traditionally a third-party 
organization mandated to accept and maintain the records of 
permanent value of an organization or individual.  If you do it 
yourself, it ain't an "archives" (with an "s"). Worse, their is 
no assurance that the integrity, authenticity, and reliability of 
the original item will be maintained.

Self-archiving and open access are fine for providing immediate 
access to one's work.  I have used both.  But no self-archive or 
open access system (or institutional repository, for that matter) 
yet meets the standards established for an Open Archival 
Information System-compliant (yet another "archive"), Trusted 
Digital Repository.  What is worse, as I argued in a paper in the 
April 15th issue of RLG DigiNews, most of the publishers that 
allow one to deposit post-prints in an institutional repository 
do not grant authors the rights to given to the repositories the 
permissions they need in order to be able to preserve the 
deposited articles over time.  The only way one can ensure that 
one's deposited information might be available over time is to 
use one of the author's addenda (or re-write the publisher 
contract).

So there is an immense difference in terms.  Self-archiving, open 
access, and institutional repositories denote computer systems 
that facilitate near-immediate access to writings.  Trusted 
Digital Repositories (aka "archives") are established, funded, 
and have the necessary legal, technical, and administrative 
capabilities to maintain digital information over time in either 
a closed or open system.  The problem with the language is that 
the use of the term "archive" in "self-archiving" implies to many 
that the TDR requirements are being met - when instead, in 
reality, access is guaranteed only as long as the "self-archives" 
does not have to make a copy of the original work.  If one wants 
an article to be permanently available, one has to secure the 
necessary right to do so from the publisher and find a IR that is 
committed to becoming a TDR - or rely upon the publisher to take 
advantage of initiatives such as PORTICO and LOCKSS to ensure 
that access (open or otherwise) will exist over time.

Peter Hirtle

On 8/12/07, Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 6 Aug 2007, Peter Hirtle wrote:
>
>> I for one am in agreement 100% with Sandy Thatcher on this. We 
>> already are suffering confusion because of the ill-advised 
>> decision to use terms like "self-archiving" and "open 
>> archive," both of which have nothing to do with archives or 
>> the permanent retention of knowledge.
>
> Both terms were perfectly fine for providing online access 
> (permanently, of course).
>
> But "open archive" then went on to denote OAI-compliant and 
> interoperable, but not necessarily Open Access, so "Open 
> Access" was needed as an extra descriptor. "Repository" was 
> (and is) of course entirely superfluous ("archive" would have 
> done just fine), but now "Institutional Repository" has 
> consolidated its supererogatory niche, so OA IR is what we have 
> to make do with.