I will not be replying further to A. Henderson or A.R. Suhail on the Author Publication Charge Debate, for two reasons:
(1) Direct spokesmen for PLoS, BMC, and the Developing World are better qualified to reply. (2) The "flavor" of OA to which I am devoting most of my own energy and efforts is "green" (OA self-archiving) rather than "gold" (OA Journal Publishing), and publication charges concern only the latter. "The Green and Gold Roads to Open Access" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3147.html 'The Green Road to Open Access: A Leveraged Transition' http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3378.html It does seem ironic, though, that a spokesman on behalf of the developing world (ARS) should be making common cause with a publicist for toll-access publishers (AH) who has long argued that the solution to the serials crisis is to find money (from somewhere) to give to libraries, so they can keep paying the rising journal prices. (It has repeatedly been pointed out that "find money, somewhere, to pay the rising prices" would be a universal formula for propping up the prices of all products and services, if there were the money, somewhere.) "Invoking Cloture (Again) on 'Serials Crisis = Library Underfunding'" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0920.html "The Affordable-Access (AA) Problem and The Open-Access (OA) Problem Are Not the Same" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3483.html Some final comments: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Suhail A. R. wrote: > OA journals do not provide tools without tolls, so it boils down to: > will tolls provide better tools? There is still far too little understanding of the access/impact problem in the research community. Please let us not add to the confusion by misusing the terminology that has evolved to clarify it: *tolls* refers to *access-tolls* (subscription tolls, site-license-tolls, pay-to-view-tolls) for *users*. OA journal publication charges to *authors* are not access-blocking tolls to users. Call them whatever you like, but not *tolls*! "For Whom the Gate Tolls?" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0000.html Moreover, "tools" should refer to secondary services applied to the primary full-texts of articles, not to the primary OA texts themselves (which are toll-free if they are OA). Some of these secondary services might be toll-based, but many will be toll-free (see the remarkable toll-free OAI service-providers that have already been created even for the little OA that exists so far: http://www.openarchives.org/service/listproviders.html ). The open-access movement is concerned with freeing the primary peer-reviewed full-text from access- and impact-blocking tolls. This literature is currently held hostage to a toll-based number of "value-added" enhancements (such as XML markup, PDF generation, citation-linking, on-paper version, distribution, archiving, access-provision). OA "unbundles" the full-text itself from these various enhancements, provides toll-free access to this all-important "vanilla version," and leaves it open whether there are further enhancements ("tools") that service-providers may wish to provide and users may wish to pay for: "Separating Quality-Control Service-Providing from Document-Providing" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0466.html "Distinguishing the Essentials from the Optional Add-Ons" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1437.html Albert Henderson: > > If higher education institutions > > were to realign library spending to match the growth of R&D, I believe > > publishers of research would be comfortable in permitting broad free > > access. A solid case should be made for governmental support of the > > indirect cost of libraries as a policy of science spending, since library > > research is essential for the preparation of science. Translation: Provide subsidies to guarantee permanent payment of whatever prices we charge, and we will happily provide free access for all! There is no product or service that would not be happy with that solution. Its sole problem is that there is no unused and limitless universal "pot" from which all those prices can be permanently propped up! Only conspiracy theories about vast sums squirreled away or misappropriated by villainous parties give this nonsense even the kooky modicum of credibility they inspire. A.R. Suhail: > I never thought of this solution. I guess this is even a better idea than > embargoed access for 1 year. And an even better idea is to print more money! Albert Henderson: > > OA activists, including the major disciplinary associations, could be more > > effective by persuading a few hundred universities and a dozen agencies > > to support productivity in science than by trying to convince millions > > of authors to reject the social bonds that determine where they submit > > their papers. A.R. Suhail: > This has been exactly what I have been trying to say, but it is more > pertinent to authors like us! And when that persuasion has been successful, persuade them to prepay drug companies whatever price they ask, so that medicine can be be given free to all who are sick, do the same with food producers to feed the hungry -- and (why stop there?) draw on that same mysterious, limitless pot, currently meanly withheld, to do the same with all consumer products and services! Alas, what makes this "solution" so obviously unworkable in the analog world of finite objects, finite resources and selfish genes keeps it unworkable even in the digital world (where limitless digital objects are not unthinkable) except in the rare special case where the digital product is something that its author *wants* to give away -- as all authors of peer-reviewed journal articles want to do, in order to maximise their usage and impact): http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#1.1 "On not conflating the give-away and non-give-away literature" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2003.html Harnad, S., Varian, H. & Parks, R. (2000) Academic publishing in the online era: What Will Be For-Fee And What Will Be For-Free? Culture Machine 2 (Online Journal) http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Cmach/Backissues/j002/Articles/art_harn.htm But as this ground has been covered so many times in this Forum, I must leave it to the spokesmen for the OA journals and the Developing World to sort out the questions about OA publication charges for authors who cannot afford it today. I have a different row to hoe (OA self-archiving), one that reaches the same goal without having to face such questions. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm Stevan Harnad NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open access to the peer-reviewed research literature online (1998-2004) is available at the American Scientist Open Access Forum: To join the Forum: http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html Post discussion to: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@amsci.org Hypermail Archive: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html Unified Dual Open-Access-Provision Policy: BOAI-2 ("gold"): Publish your article in a suitable open-access journal whenever one exists. http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#journals BOAI-1 ("green"): Otherwise, publish your article in a suitable toll-access journal and also self-archive it. http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/ http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php