[GOAL] Re: [Open-access] Re: Re: Fight Publishing Lobby's Latest FIRST Act to Delay OA - Nth Successor to PRISM, RWA etc.
On Monday, November 18, 2013, 6:06:21 PM, you wrote: But as for librarians getting out of the business of subscribing to journals -- that's just ideology (and completely unrealistic) as long as authors don't into the business of self-archiving their published articles in their institutional repositories. I only partially understand why you argue that getting out of subscriptions at this point in time and into infrastructure is an ideological proposition. I propose it because I find subscriptions too expensive compared to other solutions, because the functionality publishers offer is not even in the ballpark of adequate and because publishers do not take care of my data nor my software. Proposing a technically and financially feasible solution that solves all these problems is evidence-based policy, not ideology. And that's precisely what Green OA mandates are for. My proposal is not in competition to green mandates, but expands them: I would expand green mandates to cover not only text, but also data and software. Without an effective Green OA mandate, institutional repositories are useless (for OA). And if they don't interoperate and only cover text and not software and data, they are as good as useless. Users need access, now, and if they can't have open access, they at least need as much subscription access as their institutions can afford. That is only correct insofar as you ignore technical solutions to the access problem, afforded by green mandates and other forms of OA. It is technically simple to develop a crawler that harvests every single article any institution on this planet has access to (and, perhaps more importantly, it is not even illegal :). Placed in a decentralized repository, one can make accessible only these articles which were either published OA, or are in a repository already, or fall under a green mandate but have not been deposited, or where the copyright has expired, or that are legally accessible for some other reason. The properties can be extracted from articles with a reasonably high degree of accuracy and should cover so much of the current literature, that targeted subscription cuts would hardly be noticed by faculty. For those faculty that would notice, it should not be too difficult to explain that for a limited period of time, there is a limited reduction in access, which will be fully restored as soon as the reform is completed. What happens after we have the money is a separate issue, for a later time, but quite straightforward. Why, if few people would notice a drop in access, should we not cut subscriptions in order to finance much needed reform? Technically, this is not difficult, but it requires international coordination and standards. If you think it is ideology to suggest we coordinate ourselves and agree on standards, then we have probably deserved the quagmire we're in right now and should abandon all reform efforts anyway. Best wishes, Bjoern -- Björn Brembs - http://brembs.net Neurogenetics Universität Regensburg Germany ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: [Open-access] Re: Re: Fight Publishing Lobby's Latest FIRST Act to Delay OA - Nth Successor to PRISM, RWA etc.
On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 12:32 PM, Bjoern Brembs b.bre...@gmail.com wrote: I find subscriptions too expensive compared to other solutions Institutional users need access to subscription journals today. Whatever the solution, if the content is not OA, it means paying tolls. The toll budget for journal access is handled by the library, not by the users. I would expand green mandates to cover not only text, but also data and software. Can we wait, please, until they at least cover (journal article) text, rather than demanding even more when we don't yet even have less? if they don't interoperate and only cover text and not software and data, they are as good as useless. OA to peer-reviewed journals articles may be useless to you, Bjoern, but not to those who are denied access to them when they need them. (The OA Button http://oabutton.wordpress.com launched a couple of days ago at Berlin 11 gives a sample of the number of access-denied users for which OA to journal articles is not so useless…) It is technically simple to develop a crawler that harvests every single article any institution on this planet has access to (and, perhaps more importantly, it is not even illegal :). Placed in a decentralized repository, one can make accessible only these articles which were either published OA, or are in a repository already, or fall under a green mandate but have not been deposited, or where the copyright has expired, or that are legally accessible for some other reason. I don't know about the legality of this harvesting, but I am pretty sure that publishers that have been feverishly opposing and embargoing Green OA and Green OA mandates would not hesitate to go after a 3rd-party service-provider providing access to their proprietary content where and when it has not been made OA by its author. The only one who can provide OA to subscription journal content besides the publisher (Gold OA) is the author (Green OA). Anything else, provided by a 3rd party today, is (according to laws with which I do not agree but which are here today) considered piracyhttp://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#9.1today, and prosecutable. It would help if suggested solutions stuck to reality, rather than diverting attention from tried and tested solutions that work (but have not yet been widely enough adopted) to fantasy solutions that only make sense in one's imagination. The properties can be extracted from articles with a reasonably high degree of accuracy and should cover so much of the current literature, that targeted subscription cuts would hardly be noticed by faculty. For those faculty that would notice, it should not be too difficult to explain that for a limited period of time, there is a limited reduction in access, which will be fully restored as soon as the reform is completed. In the real world, you are saying something along the same lines as what you've already saidhttp://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/1053-Pre-emptive-cancellation-costs-far,-far-more-than-it-saves.htmlin support of an unlikely ally (librarian Rick Andersonhttp://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/1051-Is-the-Library-Community-Friend-or-Foe-of-OA.html) who proposed cancelling journals that have a higher proportion of Green OA. That will be an encouraging reward to journals that do not embargo Green OA, and a useful service to users who can no longer have subscription access to the balance of such journals' content. Why, if few people would notice a drop in access, should we not cut subscriptions in order to finance much needed reform? Because reform will come (and the finances will be released) once Green OA approaches 100% globally, not if we nip Green OA in the bud with *annulatio praecox *when we're still nowhere near the target. Green OA grows anarchically, article by article, mandate by mandate, not journal by journal. So nothing to cancel till we are at asymptote. Technically, this is not difficult, but it requires international coordination and standards. If you think it is ideology to suggest we coordinate ourselves and agree on standards, then we have probably deserved the quagmire we're in right now and should abandon all reform efforts anyway. Neither third-party harvesting of subscription-journal, non-OA content, nor the pre-emptive cancelation of journals with higher Green OA content when Green OA and Green OA mandates are still far from 100% can be described as international coordination and standards: It is remarkably unreflective and un-self--critical armchair fantasy. *Stevan Harnad* ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: [Open-access] Re: Re: Fight Publishing Lobby's Latest FIRST Act to Delay OA - Nth Successor to PRISM, RWA etc.
Stevan There is no need to wait and indeed we are not. The scholarly community is completely capable of acting on both text and data at the same time, and indeed has been for at least five years. This is to be praised not denigrated. Open access data is within our easy reach, because there are no publishers involved. I would have to check, but I believe that all of the 30+ Australian universities are already signed up to open access of research data through the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) project. Details need to resolved and open access of research data is not fully implemented, but it is a long way ahead of scholarly published text. I would be surprised if the UK and the USA were much different. Let's take the apples in our reach while we continue to struggle to pick the high ones on the top branches. Software is only different because the potential profit symbol winks mesmerizingly but deceptively into the eyes of universities. It is largely mythical. It does not apply to data. Best wishes Arthur From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad Sent: Friday, 22 November 2013 10:26 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: scholc...@ala.org; open-acc...@lists.okfn.org Subject: [GOAL] Re: [Open-access] Re: Re: Fight Publishing Lobby's Latest FIRST Act to Delay OA - Nth Successor to PRISM, RWA etc. On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 12:32 PM, Bjoern Brembs b.bre...@gmail.com wrote: [Arthur] . I would expand green mandates to cover not only text, but also data and software. Can we wait, please, until they at least cover (journal article) text, rather than demanding even more when we don't yet even have less? [Arthur] . Stevan Harnad ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
