On 27-Sep-09, at 5:56 AM, Les Carr wrote: [Re] the Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE) http://www.oacompact.org/
In these straitened times I wonder if it would be better for the HE sector to launch "CORE", the "Compact for Open Access Research Equity", replacing concerns about publishers with concerns about researchers: "We the undersigned universities recognize the crucial value of the services provided by scholarly RESEARCHERS, the desirability of open access to the scholarly literature, and the need for a stable source of funding for RESEARCHERS...." Comment: In my opinion, this is a great idea and fits with my notion of building on the leadership of COPE to expand the mandate, to include equity for open access publishers, but more broadly to make a real commitment to open access, as well as to providing the funding that OA in all of its flavors needs to thrive. That is, the mandate could be both to develop and implement green open access policy, and to commit to responsible transitioning of funding from subscriptions to open access, including equity for open access publishers but also support for open access archives (both institutional and disciplinary) and metasearch services, beginning with pilot projects as COPE members have done. Given the outstanding OA institutional policy leadership of COPE members (especially Harvard and MIT), this strikes me as something worth asking about. As others have pointed out, flipping all scholarly publishing from subscriptions to open access quickly is unlikely since academic library budgets are very tied up in subscriptions. This means that careful exploration and smaller pilot projects will make more sense in the short term than wholesale transition. From my perspective, there are benefits to this approach. While open access policies and repository developments address the access problem, we can simultaneously work towards economic support for open access endeavours, including OA publishing, archives, and free public meta- search services. Support for OA publishing benefits green OA. Full open access publishing is the most compatible approach to filling archives; there are no barriers, no restrictions, no embargoes. Heather Morrison, MLIS The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com