Re: Self-Archiving JSTOR OCR'd Retrospective Publications
On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, [identity deleted] wrote: > In your many contributions about open-access publishing, many > references are made to the annual publication of 2.5 million scientific > articles, but what is happening to the contents of hard-copy journals > of the past? You are I assume referring to the retrospective (or "legacy") contents of the 24,000 journals in which the 2.5 million articles appear? Author self-archiving can provide open access to the living-author portion of that literature. If universities and other research institutions -- as a component in their open-access provision policy for their own research output -- extend their self-archiving to their own legacy contents too, that will cover still more of the legacy literature. But the rest will require a generic scan/OCR initiative (like JSTOR). If it is left to be done by the journals themselves, or an entity (like JSTOR) contracted by them, then those contents are probably doomed to sit behind toll-access barriers instead of being open-access. It would be far better if another entity could pick up the tab for the scanning and OCR, and then make the contents open-access. If individual authors did their own bit and their institutions filled in with the rest of their own retrospective output, then it would be easy to pitch in, consortially (perhaps via SPARC) to cover the cost of the rest, so that the entire retrospective journal literature could be made open-access, pari passu with the current and future literature. > Some are being digitally archived by their publishers [e.g. [deleted]] Yes, but the output from that will alas be toll-access rather than open-access! If researchers and their instutions pitched in by providing just their own legacy literature, a lot more of it could be rendered open access. > but what is to happen to the many national journals Online access to the retrospective contents of any journal (national or otherwise) that has no retrospective scanning and access-provision agenda of its own must rely on individual and institutional self-archiving and either consortial subsidy (for open access) or JSTOR-style investment (for toll access). > The publisher of [a number of] national journals has concluded for > the time being that digital archiving of backfiles is too expensive > for immediate implementation. It would be good if national funding councils made it a policy to mandate open-access provision for all funded research output. This would encourage researchers and their institutions to self-archive their current research, with which a natural parallel step will be to self-archive their legacy research too. The distributed cost, per researcher's current and past output, is negligible. The outcome will be both access-provision and open-access provision for a goodly portion of the legacy literature -- and not just for nationally-funded research or research published in nationally-funded journals, but for all research output. > As a demonstration project of a cheaper alternative [we have > retrodigitised the contents of one journal]... The contents would be > readily accessible 24/7/365 if placed on our local computer intranet or > made available on the university's Web site. Copyright restrictions > currently prevent us from making this "quick and dirty" solution > available. An admirable project -- though it would obviously be far more useful it it were accessible not only to your university (and still better if it were accessible toll-free, i.e., open access)! > [The cost for all this is low] yet not one national funding agency > has been able to identify a program providing a source of funds for > our work. There is a kind of grim logic in that: If national funding agencies (in any country) were well-informed about the causal connection between research access and research impact, they would adopt a policy of open-access provision for all current and future research output. A natural extension of that policy would be open-access provision for retrospective content -- but not on a journal by journal basis (there is no common interest there) but on a research institution by institution basis. If a policy of that scale were in place, funding the remaining bits (of specific national journal content) that got away would be much lower, much broader-based (not just one journal but all of them) and much more readily justifiable (as a component in a coherent and systematic whole). http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0044.gif But no such national open-access provision policy exists yet, so the prospect of paying for access-provision to the retrospective contents of just one national journal is not very compelling to government agencies. I would suggest the same to you: Don't think in terms of national journals. Think in terms of current and retrospective national research output. That way you'll get all that, plus the journal contents too! > We hope to approach [national and int
Re: Free Access vs. Open Access
In the following, I respond to multiple postings: (a) one by Peter Suber, (b) three by Mike Eisen, and (c) one by Seth Johnson. Happy New Year to All! S.H. -- (a) Peter Suber wrote: > Self-archiving is a true open-access strategy, not merely a free-access > strategy. Authors who self-archive their articles are consenting not only > to price-free access, but to a range of scholarly uses that exceeds "fair > use". That is a great relief to hear, Peter! As long as both BOAI-1 and BOAI-2 are unambiguously on the same side of the "free/open" distinction (i.e., the "open" side), there can be no objection to calling *other* forms of access -- gerrymandered ebrary-style access, for example, which blocks downloading and allows only on-screen viewing -- merely "free access" rather than "open access" (as immediately agreed in the posting that first launched this thread: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2956.html ) Self-archiving authors of course do not provide mere ebrary-style access, for that would largely defeat their purpose in self-archiving, which is to maximise the usage and impact of their work. > We can quibble about what authors really consent to, since there is no > consent form connected to the self-archiving process. But at least the > BOAI was clear on what it called on authors to consent to under the name of > "open access": > "By 'open access' to this literature, we mean its free availability on the > public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, > print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for > indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful > purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those > inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself." > This list of permissible uses is not intrinsic to price-free access and > needed explicit enumeration. Moreover, it exceeds fair use as provided by > copyright law. Yes, it is intrinsic to BOAI-1 (the self-archiving strategy for providing open access) that inherent in making one's full-texts publicly accessible toll-free on the Web are all the capabilities that one normally has with material on the web. No new rights agreement with the publisher is needed for open-access provision via self-archiving (though it is helpful if the publisher has an explicit "green" policy of supporting self-archiving). BOAI-2 (the open-access journal-publishing strategy for providing open access), being a form of *publishing,* necessarily has to have some form of rights agreement (even if it is just full copyright retention by the author). The most desirable agreement is the creative commons license, but that is not necessarily the only possibility. Something very like an ordinary toll-access publisher's copyright/licensing agreement, but with the publisher formally agreeing to provide immediate, permanent, (ungerrymandered), toll-free full-text online access (i.e., the publisher archiving all contents rather than each individual author having to do it) would (by my lights) be open-access (gold) publishing even if exclusive republication rights were held by the publisher. It is not that I don't see the extra value that would be conferred by the further uses allowed by the creative commons license! I am merely thinking of what would win over a reluctant white or green publisher to converting to gold. It is very likely that they will feel it less of a risk to convert if they retain exclusive republication rights (including the exclusive right to publish and try to keep selling the toll-access version, on-paper and online!), just in case they cannot make ends meet with author-institution publication charges. (Of course, I am fully confident that the very *nature* of open access itself will ensure that none of these extra revenue-making options proves either lucrative or necessary in order to make ends meet: The natural, optimal, and inevitable outcome is that peer-reviewed journal publishing will all downsize to become peer-review service-provision and certification, and nothing else. That will be what online peer-reviewed journal publishing *means*. But time's 'awasting, and if we insist that the leap be made all at once, in advance, the leap will simply be delayed!) http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm >sh> I will frankly say that I not only consider the free/open distinction to >sh> be an ill-conceived and insubstantial after-thought and a red herring; >sh> but, if sustained and promoted, I believe it will add yet another a >sh> huge and needless delay to the provision of the toll-free, full-text, >sh> online access that (for me, at least) this has always been about, since >sh> the advent of the online era. > > It's not ill-conceived because price barriers are different in kind from > permission barriers; we might face either one without facing the > other. It's not
American Scientist Open Access Forum: 2004 email and URL updates
NEW EMAIL ADDRESS: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@amsci.org Dear Amsci Forum Participants: First, Happy New Year! The new year has brought with it a change in the website URL as well as the email address for posting to the American Scientist Open Access Forum. The message below from Don Hunter, the system director at AmSci is not quite complete, and there are still a few bugs to iron out (because at the moment the Forum has two archives at AmSci, and they have started to diverge because of the address changes: That is why you probably got 2 copies of Prof. Arunachulam's posting today! I had to repost it, as it had been sent to the old address, and only appeared in the old archive!) I hope the old and new website addresses and the old and new email addresses will be aliassed or re-directed automatically, because I know it will take a while before everyone knows and remembers to use the new addresses. Till then, I will re-post everything that goes to the old address by hand. You can help me by noting and using the new addresses! Please send postings to NEW EMAIL ADDRESS: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@amsci.org To link to the website archive, please link to (and bookmark) the URL of the NEW WEBSITE: http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html But that URL is *too long* to key in by (error-prone) in by hand! I have asked that it be shortened to http://american-scientist-open-access-forum.amsci.org/archives/amsci.html but this has not yet been done. Meanwhile, here is a shorter link: SHORTER LINK TO NEW WEBSITE: http://makeashorterlink.com/?M36812EE6 You will be relieved to hear that the URL for the Hypermail version of the complete AmSci archive remains unchanged! http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html With the very best wishes for 2004! Stevan Harnad -- Forwarded message -- List-Post: goal@eprints.org List-Post: goal@eprints.org Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 01:24:09 -0500 From: "Don H. Hunter, Jr." To: 'Stevan Harnad ' , "Don H. Hunter, Jr." Cc: Rosalind Reid Subject: Re: 2004 AmSci Forum Happy New Year! You can access the new identity at: http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html list users can submit to the site by sendimg mail to any of the following addresses: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@amsci.org american-scientist-open-access-fo...@americanscientist.org american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org american-scientist-open-access-fo...@american-scientist-open-access-forum.amsci.org Questions, just drop me a note. Don -Original Message- From: Stevan Harnad To: Don H. Hunter, Jr. Cc: Rosalind Reid Sent: 12/30/03 3:32 PM Subject: 2004 AmSci Forum Hi Don (& Rosalind): Happy New Year! And a reminder (as you requested) to turn over the American Scientist Open Access Forum in its new identity! Best wishes, Stevan
Re: Draft Policy for Self-Archiving University Research Output
India, the sleeping giant, wakes up! The Indian
Institute of Science has an institutional archive for
well over a year now. It is run well although it had
not attracted many faculty and students to deposit
their papers. But steps are now promised to improve
thesituation. Other leading higher education
institutions, particularly the Indian Institutes of
Technology, are advised to set up their own
(interoperable) archives. last week, the Indian
Academy of Sciences held a one-day conference on open
access at the national Chemical Laboratory in Pune.
Soon the Academy plans to host a workshop for
providing training in setting up open archives and
open access journals.
India is likely to forge ahead in this area and other
developing countries (such as China and Brazil) may
not like to lag behind.
It is likely that the developing world may adopt open
access in a large way - faster than the developed
world.
Arun
[Subbiah Arunachalam]
--- Stevan Harnad wrote: >
Dear Prof. Rajashekar,
>
> Congratulations on the IISc Eprints Archive!
> http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/
>
> Here are some replies to your queries:
>
> On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Dr. T.B. Rajashekar wrote:
>
> > We have also interfaced our archive with
> Greenstone
> > digital library software to support full text
> searching (not supported by
> > current version of eprint.org software).
>
> It is supported in the next eprints.org release.
> Please contact Chris
> Gutteridge for the date. (But note that full-text
> searching is far more
> useful as a cross-archive service than a
> within-archive one.)
>
> > However, self-archiving so far has been extremely
> sporadic - till today we
> > have only about 70 papers submitted to the
> archive. I should admit that on
> > our part, we have not promoted the archive
> vigorously (except for the
> > initial announcement and a poster we brought out
> sometime back).
> > We intend to go on a promotional drive and we are
> quite confident of
> > convincing significant number of our researchers
> (if not all!) the benefits
> > of self-archiving, through promotional seminars
> and individual contacts.
>
> So far that is on a par with most other archives at
> institutions
> that have not yet formulated an open-access
> provision policy. But
> the further measures you describe sound promising.
> As a
> potential model for your institutional policy, I
> recommend:
>
>
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/archpolnew.html
>
> See also:
>
> http://eprints.st-andrews.ac.uk/proxy_archive.html
>
>
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0022.gif
>
> > 3. Track 'clicks' and downloads of papers from the
> archive and generate
> > statistics in support of improved access and
> visibility.
> >
> > I believe eprints.org software does not support
> this feature. We have to
> > find a way to do this - we consider this
> important.
>
> Please contact Chris Gutteridge at eprints.org about
> this, but
> also Tim Brody designer of citebase, an
> opcit/eprints sister
> project, which does all of that as a cross-archive
> service:
> http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/search
>
> > I welcome comments and suggestions about these
> plans and also other means of
> > improving deposition and visibility of the archive
> content.
>
> I suggest you also ask the eprints-underground and
> OAI-general lists for suggestions.
>
> > There is another interesting issue. Some
> researchers in our institute (e.g.
> > physics and chemistry) ask the question - why the
> need for archiving in
> > institutional archive if they are already
> depositing in domain archives like
> > arxiv? How do we address this?
>
> Please see the Amsci threads:
>
> "Central vs. Distributed Archives"
>
>
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0293.html
>
> "Central versus institutional self-archiving"
>
>
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3205.html
>
> In a nutshell, all OAI archives are equivalent, but
> institutional self-archiving
> policy is more easily and systematically monitored
> if all research output is
> self-archived in the institutional archive.
>
>
>
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0028.gif
>
>
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0044.gif
>
> > I wish you and your colleagues a Very Happy New
> Year.
>
> Happy New Year to you too! It struck here just as I
> was replying to your message!
>
> Stevan Harnad
>
> NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion
> of providing open
> access to the peer-reviewed research literature
> online is available at
> the American Scientist Open Access Forum (98 & 99 &
> 00 & 01 & 02 & 03):
>
>
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
>
>
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html
> Post discussion to:
> american-scientist-open-access-fo...@amsci.org
>
> Unified Dual Open-Access-Provision Policy:
> BOAI-2 ("gold"): Publish your article in a
>
Re: Draft Policy for Self-Archiving University Research Output
Dear Prof. Rajashekar,
Congratulations on the IISc Eprints Archive!
http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/
Here are some replies to your queries:
On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Dr. T.B. Rajashekar wrote:
> We have also interfaced our archive with Greenstone
> digital library software to support full text searching (not supported by
> current version of eprint.org software).
It is supported in the next eprints.org release. Please contact Chris
Gutteridge for the date. (But note that full-text searching is far more
useful as a cross-archive service than a within-archive one.)
> However, self-archiving so far has been extremely sporadic - till today we
> have only about 70 papers submitted to the archive. I should admit that on
> our part, we have not promoted the archive vigorously (except for the
> initial announcement and a poster we brought out sometime back).
> We intend to go on a promotional drive and we are quite confident of
> convincing significant number of our researchers (if not all!) the benefits
> of self-archiving, through promotional seminars and individual contacts.
So far that is on a par with most other archives at institutions
that have not yet formulated an open-access provision policy. But
the further measures you describe sound promising. As a
potential model for your institutional policy, I recommend:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/archpolnew.html
See also:
http://eprints.st-andrews.ac.uk/proxy_archive.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0022.gif
> 3. Track 'clicks' and downloads of papers from the archive and generate
> statistics in support of improved access and visibility.
>
> I believe eprints.org software does not support this feature. We have to
> find a way to do this - we consider this important.
Please contact Chris Gutteridge at eprints.org about this, but
also Tim Brody designer of citebase, an opcit/eprints sister
project, which does all of that as a cross-archive service:
http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/search
> I welcome comments and suggestions about these plans and also other means of
> improving deposition and visibility of the archive content.
I suggest you also ask the eprints-underground and OAI-general lists for
suggestions.
> There is another interesting issue. Some researchers in our institute (e.g.
> physics and chemistry) ask the question - why the need for archiving in
> institutional archive if they are already depositing in domain archives like
> arxiv? How do we address this?
Please see the Amsci threads:
"Central vs. Distributed Archives"
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0293.html
"Central versus institutional self-archiving"
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3205.html
In a nutshell, all OAI archives are equivalent, but institutional self-archiving
policy is more easily and systematically monitored if all research output is
self-archived in the institutional archive.
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0028.gif
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0044.gif
> I wish you and your colleagues a Very Happy New Year.
Happy New Year to you too! It struck here just as I was replying to your
message!
Stevan Harnad
NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open
access to the peer-reviewed research literature online is available at
the American Scientist Open Access Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01 & 02 & 03):
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html
Post discussion to: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@amsci.org
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
Re: Draft Policy for Self-Archiving University Research Output
Dear Prof. Harnad It is over a year back, in October 2002, that we set up the eprint archives of Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, India (http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/) using eprints.org software. From the project RoMEO we have also extracted and provided information on our archive website details of publishers who permit pre-print archiving and those who also allow post-print archiving. We are proud that IISc eprint archive is the first of its kind to be set up in India and has been considered exemplary for setting up similar archives by other academic institutions in the country, including the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). The archive is also registered in ARC harvesting service. We have also interfaced our archive with Greenstone digital library software to support full text searching (not supported by current version of eprint.org software). However, self-archiving so far has been extremely sporadic - till today we have only about 70 papers submitted to the archive. I should admit that on our part, we have not promoted the archive vigorously (except for the initial announcement and a poster we brought out sometime back). We intend to go on a promotional drive and we are quite confident of convincing significant number of our researchers (if not all!) the benefits of self-archiving, through promotional seminars and individual contacts. Apart from these, we also plan the following: 1. Set up a mechanism to systematically scan e-journals and bibliographic databases to identify new IISc papers and then contact the authors requesting them to self-archive their papers (or better still, add the metadata ourselves and then contact the researcher for pre-print/ post-print copy depending on publisher). In case the full paper cannot be archived for any reason, store only the metadata and link to the publisher's site for the full text. In fact, we have made slight change in our installation of eprints.org software to support this feature. 2. Enable web search engines to index contents of the archive by generating and storing html page versions of bibliographic details, on the lines of 'DP9' system developed at Old Dominion University. 3. Track 'clicks' and downloads of papers from the archive and generate statistics in support of improved access and visibility. I believe eprints.org software does not support this feature. We have to find a way to do this - we consider this important. 4. Register with multiple OAI service providers to improve identification and access probability. I welcome comments and suggestions about these plans and also other means of improving deposition and visibility of the archive content. There is another interesting issue. Some researchers in our institute (e.g. physics and chemistry) ask the question - why the need for archiving in institutional archive if they are already depositing in domain archives like arxiv? How do we address this? I wish you and your colleagues a Very Happy New Year. Regards Raja - Dr. T.B. Rajashekar Associate ChairmanTel: +91-80-3600271, 3601427 National Centre for Science Fax: +91-80-3601426, 3600683 Information (NCSI) E-Mail: r...@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in Indian Institute of Science URL: http://144.16.72.189/raja/ BANGALORE-560012 (India) - SciGate: http://www.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/ The IISc Science Information Portal
Re: Free Access vs. Open Access
-Original Message- From: Stevan Harnad List-Post: goal@eprints.org List-Post: goal@eprints.org Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 16:44:29 + Subject: Re: Free Access vs. Open Access > All would-be users need to be able to read, download, store, > print-off and perhaps also computer-process those texts. Not "perhaps" computer-process. Being able to use published information is the whole reason we give people exclusive rights at all. This is what "publishing" means. It gives us information, which once published is intrinsically free. > What exactly are the uses that this excludes, uses that we would need > to surmount permission barriers in order to gain? There are fundamental rights and freedoms involved, whatever the statutory framework might seem to indicate. > > Do we need to remove permission barriers even when readers have > > fair-use rights? Yes. Fair use does not include permission to > > copy 100% of an article, let alone forward it to a colleague or > > store it for your own use. Open access includes permission for > > these important and increasingly routine acts of research. > > What fair use is needed beyond webwide toll-free access? > > 1. You want to read it? Go ahead? > > 2. Download it? Go ahead. > > 3. Print it (for yourself)? Go ahead. > > 4. Forward it to a colleague? Forward him the URL! > > 5. "Copy 100%?" Copy it where? Onto your screen? Go ahead. > > 6. Onto your computer disk (i.e., download)? Go ahead. > > 7. Onto paper? Go ahead. > > 8. Into one of your own articles, which you then submit to > a publisher? Either get the copyright holder's permission or insert > excerpts plus the URL. > > 9. Into an edited on-paper collection? Either get the copyright > holder's permission or insert excerpts plus the URL. > > Am I missing something? It seems to me that we have all the access > and use we could possibly want here, without going so far as to > stipulate what sort of velum it should appear on before declaring > the access truly open! This is a "legally-safe" analysis. It goes just as far as it goes. > We are in the online age! Inserting the open-access URL into any > online text is the online successor to copying or cut/pasting it! > What can be re-published *on paper* is moot (and probably mostly > obsolete) in the online age, but that is certainly nothing to hold > back toll-free online access for (or to withhold the "open access" > descriptor from)! This was all about (and all made possible by) > *online* access, not on-paper access (even as on-paper publication > and distribution fades away). "Legally-safe," once again. > Is any useful purpose really served by holding the term "open access" > hostage to niggles like this? Doesn't it make far more sense to > invite and welcome a lot more open access with the natural inclusive > use of the term, rather than to hold it at arm's length as > being "merely" free, but not "open"! (And at a time when most of > this literature is nowhere near being "merely free"?) This is a strange dispute. Evidently the proponents of the "not merely free" position are using the term "free" in the "free as in beer" sense, not in the "free as in freedom" sense. > I think we are not only over-reaching our grasp with this sort of > semiological exclusiveness, but we are doing it for nothing, for > trifles, and at the cost of the true riches. This putative > "free/open" distinction has lost perspective, perhaps even lost > sight of the real problem (we don't yet *have* 1-9: we're nowhere > near it!), and gotten buried instead in illusory frills -- and > formalisms... > > And none of this "free vs. open" business is either explicit or > implicit in what we agreed that "open access" meant when we founded > the BOAI. > http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#openaccess The indeterminacies around this area are why I did not sign the BOAI when I was asked to -- I look for strong positions for freedom as such, not the pursuit of "openness," whatever perspective the participants in this dispute take on the term. Both sides should just grant that they are each pursuing freedom by different means, and recognize the dispute as a whole has already subsumed itself under the lesser term of "openness," which says little about how exclusive rights policy and knowledge as such (of whatever sort) *should* be understood. Don't try to settle this; just continue your various approaches. I would encourage you to try to take harder positions, to directly violate premises of those who seek to restrict the intrinsic freedom of information in the name of excluisve rights. That's not something that's really, ultimately, pursued by legalistic maneuvers. But aside from that, please just continue to do what you feel comfortable with, and perhaps try to demonstrate support for the higher principles as you go . . . > I can see why promoting such putative extra perks might be useful in > promoting open-access journals, but I don't
Re: Free Access vs. Open Access
Stevan- You say: > Am I missing something? It seems to me that we have all the access and > use we could possibly want here, without going so far as to stipulate what > sort of velum it should appear on before declaring the access truly open! Yes, you are missing something. You seem intent on narrowly circumscribing the possible uses of the literature to include only those that amount to reading and citing works, thereby needlessly limiting both current and future uses, and it is absurd to dismissing other possible uses as "perks" that exist only to promote open access journals. I will await your reply to my earlier posting before I reiterate, once again, the types of uses that you have left off of your "exhaustive" list of possible uses of the literature. > And none of this "free vs. open" business is either explicit or implicit > in what we agreed that "open access" meant when we founded the BOAI. > http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#openaccess I don't see how you can possibly say this. The definition from BOAI follows: By 'open access' to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited." But you seem to be editing out the rights to distribute and use the literature. I don't recall it ever coming up in Budapest that we were endorsing flavors of open access where these key elements were missing. It was always assumed that the two strategies were alternative ways of achieving this end - a belief that I still strongly endorse. Open access, in the true BOAI sense, can be readily achieved by self-archiving. But - and I think this is the crux of the current argument - self-archiving does not in and of itself achieve open access, especially when its chief proponent is dismissing critical parts of the open access definition as spurious. By relaixng the definition of open access in order to appease publisher you may achieve free access more rapidly, but this will not be without a cost. > But before I reply I would like to introduce two historical/factual > points, and one logical point that they entail, for reflection: > > (1) Let's ask ourselves what it was, exactly, that changed, with the > advent of the online age, insofar as the specific literature we are > discussing here -- which I must never tire to remind everyone is the > annual 2.5 million articles published in the world's 24,000 peer-reviewed > journals -- is concerned? > > Others may have other answers, but by my lights what changed was nothing > more or less than the *means* and the *cost* of making one's peer-reviewed > research accessible to would-be users: In the on-paper era, access had to be > restricted to those users whose institutions could afford the subscription > access tolls, and the potential usage and impact from those would-be > users whose institutions could not afford the access tolls had to be > renounced as lost -- in order to ensure the recovery of the substantial > real costs of on-paper publication (without which there would be no access > or impact at all). > > In the on-line era it became possible, at last, (a) for researchers, > if they wished, to make their peer-reviewed articles accessible to > all would-be users toll-free, by self-archiving them on the web, and > thereby putting an end to their lost potential impact. It also become > possible (b) for publishers, if they wished, to cut the costs of on-paper > publication and recover the much lower on-line-only costs by charging > the author-institution a fee per outgoing article published instead of by > charging user-institutions an access-toll per journal or article accessed. > http://www.arl.org/sc/subversive/ It's certainly true that the means and costs changed - but that is certainly not all! What also changed was that it became possible to begin moving beyond the limitations on the creative use of the knowledge contained in the scientific literature imposed by the printed page. Saying that all that changed for scientific publishing in the on-line era is that it became possible to expose a greater chunk of the world to our writing, is, in my mind, like saying all that changed for society with the birth of the internet was that it became easier and cheaper to send letters to our friends and family. > In neither case is any of the following a sine qua non, though they appear > to be 'articles of faith' for some: > > *Copyright retention by the author, or the author's instit
Re: Free Access vs. Open Access
At 03:16 PM 12/31/2003 +, Stevan Harnad wrote: >The discussion of the Free/Open Access distinction appears to >be growing. I see that Peter Suber has posted a reply to the >SOAF list, which I will re-post to the Amsci Forum in a moment >so I can reply to it on both lists after I have replied to >Mike Eisen (in prep.!). [...] >(3) If BOAI-1 (self-archiving) indeed yielded only "free" access but not >"open" access: > > (i) Why would we dub BOAI-1 an "open-access" strategy rather than > merely a "free-access" strategy? Self-archiving is a true open-access strategy, not merely a free-access strategy. Authors who self-archive their articles are consenting not only to price-free access, but to a range of scholarly uses that exceeds "fair use". We can quibble about what authors really consent to, since there is no consent form connected to the self-archiving process. But at least the BOAI was clear on what it called on authors to consent to under the name of "open access": "By 'open access' to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself." This list of permissible uses is not intrinsic to price-free access and needed explicit enumeration. Moreover, it exceeds fair use as provided by copyright law. >I will frankly say that I not only consider the free/open distinction to >be an ill-conceived and insubstantial after-thought and a red herring; >but, if sustained and promoted, I believe it will add yet another a >huge and needless delay to the provision of the toll-free, full-text, >online access that (for me, at least) this has always been about, since >the advent of the online era. It's not ill-conceived because price barriers are different in kind from permission barriers; we might face either one without facing the other. It's not an after-thought because it was already contained in the BOAI. It's not a red herring because we must remove permission barriers as well as price barriers in order to maximize the impact and usefulness of research articles. I don't see the argument for the claim that my definition of "open access" will cause delay. >Must we remind ourselves that what we need -- and don't have, but >could have virtually overnight if we make up our minds we want it -- >is maximised research impact through maximised research access? Isn't that >what this is all about? That does *not* mean holding out for XML mark-up, >raising the goal-posts so that only XML articles are seen as meeting the >goal, and withholding the title of having met the goal from any article >that is not XML -- while the *real* problem, which is the continuing >toll-barriers to access and impact, just keeps on festering, unremedied! If you're still replying to me, then this misses the target. I never said "open access" included XML mark-up! Please reread my note. I merely said that open access removes both price and permission barriers, not just price barriers. Mike Eisen didn't say that open access included XML mark-up either. He merely said that XML mark-up is desirable, and that permission to do it is not part of fair use; and he's right about both points. Peter
