Re: NIH mandate - institutional repositories

["Joseph Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

It is factually inaccurate to say that ePrints and DSpace are the 
most widely used IR software.  That distinction belongs to 
Berkeley Electronic Press's Digital Commons.  Of course it 
depends on the definition of use.  ePrints has numerous 
installations that are barely being used.

Whatever else one wants to say about Raym Crow and SPARC, Crow's 
white paper on IRs is anything but "quackish."  It is an 
insightful document by a penetrating strategic thinker.

As for mandating self-archiving, well, this is the ridiculous 
argument that won't go away.  Most people pay their taxes because 
payment is mandated.  What precisely does that prove?  Mandates 
are necessary for self-archiving because most (not all) 
researchers either believe it is not a good idea or believe it is 
of little importance and thus not worth their time.  Of course, 
they could be wrong.

Joe Esposito

On 11/23/07, Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
> On 21-Nov-07, at 7:53 PM, Anthony Watkinson wrote:
>
>> I cannot claim to be an expert on institutional repositories
>> and their history but the first time I became aware of them was
>> from a presentation by Ann Wolpert one the originators of
>> DSpace. It was my understanding then and it is my understanding
>> now that for some involved in the IR movement the purpose was
>> to provide a service to faculty. The DSpace mission from one of
>> the sites reads:
>>
>> DSpaceT is a free, open source software platform that allows
>> research organizations to offer faculty and researchers a
>> professionally managed searchable archive for their digital
>> assets. DSpace focuses on simple access to these assets, as
>> well as their long-term preservation.
>>
>> It is my understanding that DSpace development was in progress
>> by 2000.
>
> At the end of 2000. IRs began in 1999-2000, with EPrints, at
> Southampton, where CogPrints (designed by Matt Hemus, a
> Southampton ECS doctoral student) was first made OAI-compliant
> and then turned into EPrints generic IR software by Rob Tansley
> (likewise a Southampton ECS doctoral student) in 2000:
>
> http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october00/10inbrief.html#HARNAD
>
> EPrints was widely adopted and Rob Tansley was then recruited by
> MIT and Hewlett-Packard to create DSpace.
>
> http://www.apsr.edu.au/Open_Repositories_2006/speakers.htm
>
> EPrints and DSpace are now the two most widely used IR softwares
> worldwide.
>
> http://roar.eprints.org/index.php?action=browse
>
>> In 2002 a very different definition was proposed by Raym Crow
>> in his SPARC position paper - see
>> http://www.arl.org/sparc/bm~doc/ir_final_release_102.pdf. The
>> definition of IRs set out in his abstract is very different and
>> speaks of reforming scholarly communication in line with the
>> SPARC agenda.
>
> IRs were originally on the right track: OA self-archiving. The
> SPARC position paper scrambled that a little with some rather
> quackish ideas about publishing reform.
>
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/crow.html
>
>> My picture is that SPARC have attempted to hi-jack an agenda
>> which was faculty-centred into one which is library-centred,
>> some libraries that is. The mandates proposed are only
>> necessary because faculty persistently refuse to fit in with
>> this new agenda which does not represent their needs or wishes.
>
> This is a misimpression. The mandates have nothing to do with
> SPARC or a hi-jacked agenda.
>
> http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/
>
> They have to do with the fact that busy faculty will not do
> anything -- even something that is in their own interests --
> unless it is required. But if self-archiving is required, Alma
> Swan's surveys have shown that over 95% of faculty report they
> will comply, over 80% of them saying they will comply willingly.
>
> http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10999/
>
> And Arthur Sale's studies on actual behavior confirm this:
> Faculty do not self-archive in great numbers spontaneously, or if
> merely invited, requested or encouraged to do it, whereas they
> self-archive at substantially higher rates if it is mandated --
> approaching full compliance within about 2 years.
>
> http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_10/sale/index.html
>
> This is not surprising, as faculty also comply with publish-or-perish
> mandates -- and would publish a good deal less without them
>
> http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw64/harnad.html
>
> Stevan Harnad