I am reminded in this whole debate of the Fourth International but hesitate at ascribing present persona with past or with roles - revisionary or not.
That said, it is an important debate, although perhaps just recognition that in scholarly literature there is both peer communication (intended and with use of language that is for a designated community - of folk like me) and client enlightenment (intended for transmission of well-contested ideas and results - for folk outside my cosy crowd). There have always been arguments about the extent to which these two can be separated - if only for the purpose of polemic. More than that, the significance of this debate is instrumental, designed to bring about agreed ends. Unless we bring in Emma Goldman, a revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having, and note that We may be looking for different ends. P On Mon, 30 Apr 2012, Peter Murray-Rust wrote: > I feel I have to speak out against the opinions voiced by Stevan - I don't > like to do this as there is - possibly - a common goal. But they are so > exclusionary that they must be challenged, if only for those people people > on the list and more widely who are looking for guidance. > > The idea that there is a set of "researchers" in Universities who deserve > special consideration and for whom public funds must be spent is offensive. > I fall directly into SH's category of "the general public", whom he now > identifies as of peripheral importance and thankful for the crumbs that > fall from his approach.. I have worked in industry, work with industry and > although I have been an academic am not now paid as one. The idea that I am > de facto second-class is unacceptable, even if you accept the convoluted > logic that this is necessary to achieve Green Open Access. > > There are no areas of science and more generally scholarship which are not > in principle highly valuable to "the general public". I am, for example, at > present working in phylogenetics - not a discipline I have been trained in > - and I and my software wishes to read 10,000 papers per year. Most of > these papers could be of great interest to some people - they detail the > speciation of organisms and are fully understandable by, say, those whose > hobby is natural history or those with responsibility for decision making. > > SH's pronouncements do considerable damage to the OA movement. I am a > supporter of publicly funded Gold OA and of domain repositories. I am not > prepared for these to be dismissed ex cathedra. Both work well in the areas > I am acquainted with - I am on the board of UK PubMedCentral and also on > the board of a BOIA-compliant Open Access journal (where, by the way, half > the papers come from outside academia and are every bit as competent and > valuable). I have personally not many any scientists who are highly > committed to Green OA and before stating their position as "facts" it would > be useful to hear from them and listen. > > There is an increasing amount of scholarship taking place outside > Universities and without the public purse. Wikipedia is, perhaps, the best > example of this and could - if minds were open - act as an interesting > approach to respositories. It's notable that uptake of publication-related > tools such as WP, Figshare, Dryad, Mendeley, etc. is high, because people > actually want them. I would like to see effort on information-saving and > sharing tools that people need and community repositories. > > I'll stop there - I sincerely hope that SH's list does not get wider > traction. > > -- > Peter Murray-Rust > emeritus Reader in Molecular Informatics > Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry > University of Cambridge > CB2 1EW, UK > +44-1223-763069 > ********** ********* ******** ******* ****** ***** **** *** ** * Peter Burnhill Director, EDINA national data centre & Head, Data Library Causewayside House University of Edinburgh 160 Causewayside Edinburgh EH Scotland, UK tel: +44 (0) 131 650 3301 fax: 3308 mobile: +44 (0) 774 0763 119 Email: p.burnhill at ed.ac.uk URL http://edina.ac.uk -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
