Re: Roundtable Press Release (Access to Research Results)

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

The "version of record" (the publisher's proprietary draft) may 
well be what librarians prefer, and are willing to wait out an 
embargo for; it is no doubt also the version publishers prefer we 
all wait for.

But I hope it will be understood that the researchers whose 
institutions cannot afford access to the version of record would 
prefer not to wait, and would be perfectly happy with the 
author's final, peer-reviewed, accepted draft (postprint) during 
any publisher embargo period, rather than no access at all. 
Authors too -- if they think it through (many still don't) -- 
would prefer that would-be users had access to their refereed 
final drafts rather than no access at all during any publisher 
embargo period. And so would their institutions and funders. 
Which is why an increasing number of institutions and funders are 
mandating immediate deposit of the final draft, rather than 
waiting for the version of record.

Prominently missing or minimal about this Roundtable of 
publishers and librarians were those who represent and understand 
the needs of active, access-denied researchers (or the funders 
and institutions of the authors of the works to which they are 
denied access).

Holding out for the version of record is for pedants and 
preservationists. What research, researchers, their institutions 
and their funders, students, teachers and the general public need 
now is access to the refereed research itself, immediately upon 
acceptance for publication, free for all, and not accessible only 
to those whose institutions can afford the subscription. If 
there's any point in publishing the findings at all once they are 
refereed, revised and accepted, then there's the same point in 
making them freely accessible to all would-users as soon as they 
are accepted, no later.

Meanwhile, the version of record can wait, and be waited for.

Stevan Harnad

On 15-Jan-10, at 9:29 PM, Sandy Thatcher wrote:

> As Suber surmises, one reason the group did not recommend a
> mandate  is that it favors posting of the Version of Record, and
> this  naturally means that the length of the embargo period
> becomes  crucially important. And as I asked librarians in
> another post here,  what length of time would ensure that
> humanities journals made  available through Project Muse would
> not find their subscriptions  undercut? A mandate that made a
> mistake here could result in the  disappearance of a great many
> humanities journals published by  smaller publishers like our
> press that have no facility for  publishing electronically other
> than through Project Muse. Our press  allows Green OA, but I
> believe myself that the VoR is essential for  scholarly purposes
> even though the Green OA version may be adequate  for classroom
> teaching and for transmitting information to the  general public.
> Here Suber and I appear to be in disagreement. Suber  says:
>
> I'm one who agrees that the published edition is generally more
> useful than the final version of the author's peer-reviewed
> manuscript, although I'd add:  unless the published edition is
> only  available in PDF.  But even if all the editions we're
> talking about  are in HTML or XML, assured OA to the final
> version of the author's  peer-reviewed manuscript is far more
> useful to research than  untrustworthy (flaky, selective,
> temporary, late) OA to the published  edition.  If we can have
> assured OA to the published edition, and in  a use-friendly
> format, wonderful; I want it.  But if we can't, we  should put
> assured OA ahead of OA to the published edition.
>
> And of course we have hardly begun to talk about OA for
> monographs  yet. This report avoids that subject altogether.
>
> Sandy Thatcher
> Penn State University Press