Re: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal
While in general I agree with Stevan's comments about Sally Morris's comments, it is important to remember that Sally is spokesperson for an organisation of not-for-profit scholarly publishers, many of them small. I strongly support the institutional repository movement, and I am pleased at the RCUK statement. Big publishers - for-profit or not-for-profit - will no doubt look after their own interests robustly. However, I think there is a non-trivial problem for the medium- to long-term viability of the smaller learned society publishers. I approve of those organisations too, and I don't want to see them driven to the wall - their disappearance would be damaging to the scholarly community. A business model, or preferably a range of possible business models, needs to be found that will enable these organisations to prosper in a future environment dominated by OA repositories. I don't think that problem is near solution yet. Fytton Rowland, Loughborough University
Re: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal
On Tue, 5 Jul 2005, J.F.B.Rowland wrote: > While in general I agree with Stevan's comments about Sally Morris's > comments, it is important to remember that Sally is spokesperson for an > organisation of not-for-profit scholarly publishers, many of them small. I > strongly support the institutional repository movement, and I am pleased at > the RCUK statement. Big publishers - for-profit or not-for-profit - will no > doubt look after their own interests robustly. However, I think there is a > non-trivial problem for the medium- to long-term viability of the smaller > learned society publishers. I approve of those organisations too, and I > don't want to see them driven to the wall - their disappearance would be > damaging to the scholarly community. A business model, or preferably a > range of possible business models, needs to be found that will enable these > organisations to prosper in a future environment dominated by OA > repositories. I don't think that problem is near solution yet. The point is that the problem is not only not near solution, but it is a hypothetical problem that is also not near being a problem yet, nor even being clear whether (and if so when) it will ever be a problem. The *real* problem, and the pressing one, is the one we keep forgetting about, because it has nothing whatsoever to do either with libraries budget problems or learned-society publisher (LSP) problem (small, medium or large), and that is: the research-impact-loss problem. This is a *huge* loss of resource *potential*, hence of potential research progress. (It also, if one wants to be crass, translates into lost potential research-based revenue.) There is nothing hypothetical at all about this loss. It is actual. All one need do to visualise it is to compare the research impact of the 15% of journal articles that have been self-archived with the 85% that have not: http://citebase.eprints.org/isi_study/ http://www.crsc.uqam.ca/lab/chawki/ch.htm http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html If one absolutely insists on weighing the hypothetical small-learned-society-publisher problem against the actual potential-research-impact-loss problem, the right way to do it is this: If there is indeed a contingency between LSPs and research impact, would researchers indeed be prepared to consider knowingly subsidising LSPs (or anyone) with their lost research impact? I think that, when made explicit like that, and faced squarely, the answer is obvious. http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#19.Learned As to "possible business models": they are dead-obvious too, but at this point they amount to hypothetical contingency piled upon hypothetical contingency: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm Let us wait till that hypothetical bridge is at least within Hubble-telescopic sight, before mustering our contingency plans for crossing it. There are far, far more pressing immediate priorities, namely, stanching the endless flow of needless daily, weekly, monthly research impact loss -- needless effectively since the onset of the online era (1980's), but undeniably heedless since the onset of the OAI-interoperable IR (1999) era and the demonstration of both the feasibility of self-archiving and its effects on research impact across all disciplines. http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0025.gif Stevan Harnad
Re: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal
This is a problem - the viability of smaller society publishers - that you choose to leave aside, Stevan. That's o.k.; you are an academic, and you think about academics' problems, like visibility and impact. The Chief Executive of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers can't ignore it; it's her job to think about it. I choose to think about it because, even though I am now an academic, I worked for the first half of my career for learned society publishers. I am strongly in favour of OA and institutional repositories, but I'm in favour of societies and their publication programmes too, and I'd like to find a way of us having both. These issues are bundled together. Bodies - like JISC, say - who are trying to find a new and practicable way of organising scholarly communication. They have to take into account all of the players in the game. Fytton. - Original Message - From: "Stevan Harnad" To: Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2005 1:29 PM Subject: Re: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal On Tue, 5 Jul 2005, J.F.B.Rowland wrote: While in general I agree with Stevan's comments about Sally Morris's comments, it is important to remember that Sally is spokesperson for an organisation of not-for-profit scholarly publishers, many of them small. I strongly support the institutional repository movement, and I am pleased at the RCUK statement. Big publishers - for-profit or not-for-profit - will no doubt look after their own interests robustly. However, I think there is a non-trivial problem for the medium- to long-term viability of the smaller learned society publishers. I approve of those organisations too, and I don't want to see them driven to the wall - their disappearance would be damaging to the scholarly community. A business model, or preferably a range of possible business models, needs to be found that will enable these organisations to prosper in a future environment dominated by OA repositories. I don't think that problem is near solution yet. The point is that the problem is not only not near solution, but it is a hypothetical problem that is also not near being a problem yet, nor even being clear whether (and if so when) it will ever be a problem. The *real* problem, and the pressing one, is the one we keep forgetting about, because it has nothing whatsoever to do either with libraries budget problems or learned-society publisher (LSP) problem (small, medium or large), and that is: the research-impact-loss problem. This is a *huge* loss of resource *potential*, hence of potential research progress. (It also, if one wants to be crass, translates into lost potential research-based revenue.) There is nothing hypothetical at all about this loss. It is actual. All one need do to visualise it is to compare the research impact of the 15% of journal articles that have been self-archived with the 85% that have not: http://citebase.eprints.org/isi_study/ http://www.crsc.uqam.ca/lab/chawki/ch.htm http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html If one absolutely insists on weighing the hypothetical small-learned-society-publisher problem against the actual potential-research-impact-loss problem, the right way to do it is this: If there is indeed a contingency between LSPs and research impact, would researchers indeed be prepared to consider knowingly subsidising LSPs (or anyone) with their lost research impact? I think that, when made explicit like that, and faced squarely, the answer is obvious. http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#19.Learned As to "possible business models": they are dead-obvious too, but at this point they amount to hypothetical contingency piled upon hypothetical contingency: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm Let us wait till that hypothetical bridge is at least within Hubble-telescopic sight, before mustering our contingency plans for crossing it. There are far, far more pressing immediate priorities, namely, stanching the endless flow of needless daily, weekly, monthly research impact loss -- needless effectively since the onset of the online era (1980's), but undeniably heedless since the onset of the OAI-interoperable IR (1999) era and the demonstration of both the feasibility of self-archiving and its effects on research impact across all disciplines. http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0025.gif Stevan Harnad
Re: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal
The viability of smaller society publishers is indeed important for the health and diversity of scholarly communication as a whole, and I strongly endorse Fytton's view of finding ways to integrate OA with existing publishing programs. It is worth noting that the many problems small society publishers face (shrinking subscription, low submissions, low impact etc.) predate the internet and open access. The fear that open access is detrimental to small society publishers need to be better substantiated and the benefits of OA for the same publishers should also be better documented so that informed decisions could be made. I think that was one of Stevan's points. Our experience working with small publishers from developing countries is that free access online has substantially improved visibility, author submissions, and citations. A key part of our strategy is to use OAI-compliant eprints server to maximize exposure and access of journal publications: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/2759 http://159.226.100.146/%BB%E1%D2%E9%BF%CE%BC%FE/Session%207-2Leslie.pdf We are far from having a long-term business plan and sustainability model and we are heavily reliant on university and grant subsidy. We do believe that if small society publishers wish to continue to serve its members and communities, then they need to find alternative revenue streams, form new publishing partnerships with universities or like-minded organizations, instead of trying to delay open access. We should also try to persuade funding and aids agencies to fund institutional repositories and fund journals based on readership and citation rather than on circulation or subscription. But we need to share data and information about subscription and citation. Best Leslie Chan Bioline International On 7/5/05 8:46 AM, "J.F.B.Rowland" wrote: > This is a problem - the viability of smaller society publishers - that you > choose to leave aside, Stevan. That's o.k.; you are an academic, and you > think about academics' problems, like visibility and impact. The Chief > Executive of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers > can't ignore it; it's her job to think about it. I choose to think about it > because, even though I am now an academic, I worked for the first half of my > career for learned society publishers. I am strongly in favour of OA and > institutional repositories, but I'm in favour of societies and their > publication programmes too, and I'd like to find a way of us having both. > These issues are bundled together. Bodies - like JISC, say - who are trying > to find a new and practicable way of organising scholarly communication. > They have to take into account all of the players in the game. > > Fytton. > > > - Original Message - > From: "Stevan Harnad" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2005 1:29 PM > Subject: Re: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy > Proposal > > >> On Tue, 5 Jul 2005, J.F.B.Rowland wrote: >> >>> While in general I agree with Stevan's comments about Sally Morris's >>> comments, it is important to remember that Sally is spokesperson for an >>> organisation of not-for-profit scholarly publishers, many of them small. >>> I >>> strongly support the institutional repository movement, and I am pleased >>> at >>> the RCUK statement. Big publishers - for-profit or not-for-profit - will >>> no >>> doubt look after their own interests robustly. However, I think there is >>> a >>> non-trivial problem for the medium- to long-term viability of the smaller >>> learned society publishers. I approve of those organisations too, and I >>> don't want to see them driven to the wall - their disappearance would be >>> damaging to the scholarly community. A business model, or preferably a >>> range of possible business models, needs to be found that will enable >>> these >>> organisations to prosper in a future environment dominated by OA >>> repositories. I don't think that problem is near solution yet. >> >> The point is that the problem is not only not near solution, but it is a >> hypothetical problem that is also not near being a problem yet, nor even >> being >> clear whether (and if so when) it will ever be a problem. >> >> The *real* problem, and the pressing one, is the one we keep forgetting >> about, because it has nothing whatsoever to do either with libraries >> budget problems or learned-society publisher (LSP) problem (small, >> medium or large), and that is: the research-impact-loss problem. This >> is a *huge* loss of resource *potential
Re: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal
On Fri, 8 Jul 2005, Sally Morris (ALPSP) wrote: > Stevan, I don't know what planet you live on (;-) but on Planet Earth the > problem librarians are trying to address - and the reason for any > enthusiasm for repositories or any other means of OA - is a shortage of funds Sally, that might be the reason for librarians' (and library funders') enthusiasm for OA, but it is not the main reason for OA. The reason for OA is to maximise research impact, hence research progress and productivity. And the *providers* of OA are not and cannot be librarians (be they ever so enthusiastic): The only providers of OA are the researchers themselves. And the only reason that will persuade them (and their funders) to provide it is that it manximises their research impact. So whereas both the publishing community and the library community are marginally implicated in OA (each can either help or hinder it) OA-provision itself is 100% in the hands of the OA-providers: the research community. It can and will be done only by and for them. It is to the research community that the RCUK mandate is addressed. Stevan > Sally > > Sally Morris, Chief Executive > Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers > South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK > Tel: +44 (0)1903 871 686 > Fax: +44 (0)1903 871 457 > Email: sally.mor...@alpsp.org > - Original Message - From: "Stevan Harnad" > To: "Liblicense" > Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2005 10:58 PM > Subject: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal > > > >On Mon, 4 Jul 2005, Sally Morris (ALPSP) wrote: > > > >>It beats me how people can argue on the one hand that > >>repositories are necessary to solve libraries' financial problems > > > >If anyone is arguing for OA self-archiving in order to solve libraries' > >financial problems, they are certainly barking up the wrong tree. As we > >have argued over and over: > > > >"the journal-affordability problem and the article-access/impact > >problem are not the same" > > > > Harnad, S., Brody, T., Vallieres, F., Carr, L., Hitchcock, S., > > Gingras, Y, Oppenheim, C., Stamerjohanns, H., & Hilf, E. (2004) The > > Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold Roads to Open Access. > > Serials Review 30 (4) 2004 > > http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.serrev.2004.09.013 > > http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10209/ > > > >Institutional repositories (and institutional self-archiving mandates) are > >necessary in order to maximise research access and impact, *not* in order > >to solve libraries' financial problems. Conflating the two has always been > >a fundamental mistake, both practical and conceptual, and one that has > >done nothing but lose us time (and research progress and impact), > >needlessly delaying the optimal and inevitable outcome (for research, > >researchers, their users and their funders): An OA self-archiving mandate > >has nothing to do with library financial problems. It is adopted by > >researchers' employers and funders in order to maximise their (joint) > >research impact. > > > >(But I agree that if others had not repeatedly made this unfortunate and > >common conflation, Sally could not have made her own specious argument by > >way of reply!) > > > >>and on the other [hand, how can people argue that self-archiving]... will > >>not > >>lead to increased subscription/licence cancellations and thus, ultimately, > >>to the collapse of journals > > > >The argument that self-archiving can and will increase research impact > >substantially is based on objective *fact*, tested and demonstrated by (a) > >years of self-archiving and (b) repeatedly replicated objective > >comparisons of citation impact for self-archived versus non-self-archived > >articles in the same journals and issues, across all fields: > > > >http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html > > > >The argument that self-archiving will lead to journal cancellations and > >collapse, in contrast, is not based on objective fact but on *hypothesis*. > >There are of course also counter-arguments, based on counter-hypotheses > > http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm > > > >but it is also a fact that all objective evidence to date is *contrary* > >to the hypothesis that self-archiving leads to journal cancellation > >and collapse: > > > >http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4312.html > >http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11006/ > > > >When in reply to Sally's statement: > > > > SM: "Although in some areas of physics, journals have so far coexisted > > with the ArXiv subject repository, some of our members in other > > disciplines already have first-hand evidence that immediate free > > access can cause significant damage to sales." > > > >I asked Sally for that evidence, she has now replied: > > > >SM: "the evidence I've been given so far was in confidence" > > > >So apparently the world research community is t
Re: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal
Sally I'd like to repeat Stevan's message from Australia and as an active researcher myself: open access (OA) is about maximizing research impact, and providing access to publications for all relevant researchers, while preserving the value-adding aspects of refereeing and quality-certification. This is a view that should have a very high appeal for all librarians, for it lies at the core of what librarianship is all about: making access to knowledge easy. However as Stevan says the bottle-neck in this process at the moment is the researchers, and librarians can best help by encouraging their researchers to make their research output accessible in an OA repository, in their own personal interests. Some forward-looking professional society publishers have partly recognized this as well. For example, the Australian Computer Society Incorporated grants a blanket OK to OA archiving http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php, and also places all articles in the Journal of Research & Practice in Information Technology on the ACS website at https://www.acs.org.au/jrpit/JRPIT_Volumes.html and also all papers presented at the multi-conference Australasian Computer Science Week at http://crpit.com/. This is all long-standing practice of many years. Unfortunately the ACS website is not yet OAI-PMH compatible, but it is harvested by the search engines. I have active support and understanding of this view from my local Library and librarians. They understand that OA is not about saving Library subscription funds (indeed there remains pressure to increase them) but about positioning the University of Tasmania's research in the global arena and making it widely accessible. Arthur Arthur Sale Professor of Computing (Research) 127 Tranmere Road, Howrah, Tasmania 7018, AUSTRALIA Phone (03) 6247 1331 (International replace '(03)' by '+61-3-') or Mobile 04 1947 1331 > -Original Message- > From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN- > access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad > Sent: Saturday, 9 July 2005 01:04 > To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org > Subject: Re: [AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM] A Prophylactic Against > the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal > > On Fri, 8 Jul 2005, Sally Morris (ALPSP) wrote: > > > Stevan, I don't know what planet you live on (;-) but on Planet Earth the > > problem librarians are trying to address - and the reason for any > > enthusiasm for repositories or any other means of OA - is a shortage of funds > > Sally, that might be the reason for librarians' (and library funders') enthusiasm > for OA, but it is not the main reason for OA. The reason for OA is to maximise > research impact, hence research progress and productivity. And the *providers* > of OA are not and cannot be librarians (be they ever so enthusiastic): The > only providers of OA are the researchers themselves. And the only reason that > will persuade them (and their funders) to provide it is that it manximises their > research impact. > > So whereas both the publishing community and the library community > are marginally implicated in OA (each can either help or hinder it) > OA-provision itself is 100% in the hands of the OA-providers: the research > community. It can and will be done only by and for them. > > It is to the research community that the RCUK mandate is addressed. > > Stevan
Re: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal
Agreed that the main reason for authors to adopt OA is about access, and that it is current the authors who are the bottleneck. However, most libraries see themselves as responsible primarily to the readers, --even the same researchers want different things in these two roles. If OA advocates on the author side expect support from the libraries or their readers, they will have to learn to see it from their perspective as well. Thus: No library has the funds for toll access to all the journals its users need, and Arthur confirms the pressure to increase subscriptions. Unfortunately, no library is in the least likely to obtain sufficient funding. The librarians are asked by the readers to obtain material they do not have and cannot afford. For a librarian, the attractiveness of OA is in being able to provide for the user the articles in the whole range of journals that are not held otherwise. The same, I suggest, is true for the user, even the author when he is a reader or user. The library has an additional consideration that the individual user does not: the method of providing OA must not interfere with the funding and existence of publications. I do not know whether or not "green" OA will eventually do so, and I think neither does anyone else. Even if OA were to harm the publication chain, we don't know the time scale. The usual argument is that it will not possibly have any effect until the amount of OA reaches 100%. I do not know if this is true--but whether or not this is true depends not on our arguments, or any data now available. I can imagine many different ways libraries (and authors and readers and publishers and funding agencies) might behave, and I do not know what any of them will actually do. I think I know what I would like them to do, but that's not the same thing. I myself think it perfectly reasonable to work for 100%OA and deal with the consequences, confident that libraries can improvise adequately as they always have, but I am not sure how many of my colleagues would agree. As for details, all any of us can do is speculate, and i will not try to do so in this list. Dr. David Goodman Associate Professor Palmer School of Library and Information Science Long Island University dgood...@liu.edu -Original Message- From: American Scientist Open Access Forum on behalf of Arthur Sale Sent: Sat 7/9/2005 2:54 AM To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal Sally I'd like to repeat Stevan's message from Australia and as an active researcher myself: open access (OA) is about maximizing research impact, and providing access to publications for all relevant researchers, while preserving the value-adding aspects of refereeing and quality-certification. This is a view that should have a very high appeal for all librarians, for it lies at the core of what librarianship is all about: making access to knowledge easy. However as Stevan says the bottle-neck in this process at the moment is the researchers, and librarians can best help by encouraging their researchers to make their research output accessible in an OA repository, in their own personal interests. Some forward-looking professional society publishers have partly recognized this as well. For example, the Australian Computer Society Incorporated grants a blanket OK to OA archiving http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php, and also places all articles in the Journal of Research & Practice in Information Technology on the ACS website at https://www.acs.org.au/jrpit/JRPIT_Volumes.html and also all papers presented at the multi-conference Australasian Computer Science Week at http://crpit.com/. This is all long-standing practice of many years. Unfortunately the ACS website is not yet OAI-PMH compatible, but it is harvested by the search engines. I have active support and understanding of this view from my local Library and librarians. They understand that OA is not about saving Library subscription funds (indeed there remains pressure to increase them) but about positioning the University of Tasmania's research in the global arena and making it widely accessible. Arthur Arthur Sale Professor of Computing (Research) 127 Tranmere Road, Howrah, Tasmania 7018, AUSTRALIA Phone (03) 6247 1331 (International replace '(03)' by '+61-3-') or Mobile 04 1947 1331 > -Original Message- > From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN- > access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad > Sent: Saturday, 9 July 2005 01:04 > To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org > Subject: Re: [AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM] A Prophylactic Against > the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal > > On Fri, 8 Jul 2005, Sally Morris (ALPSP)
