Re: On the Need to Take Both Roads to Open Access

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2003 04:05:38 +0100

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003, [Identity Deleted] wrote:

> Stevan,
>
> [Identity Deleted], our electronic resources coordinator, was inspired by
> your quote of 55% of journals allowing self-archiving to ask why we don't
> just go back and retrospectively add that 55% to a University archive.
> [ http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2995.html ]
>
> I have been pushing [Ivy League University, identity deleted] to establish
> such an archive. I thought it was a great idea to get a collection of
> content immediately. Do you know of other Universities that are doing
> this and if not, why not?

Thanks for your message.

(1) The 55% figure comes from the Romeo sample of 7000+ journals, of
which 55% already officially support author/institution self-archiving.
(Many more journals will agree if asked.)
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo/Romeo%20Publisher%20Policies.htm

(2) In most cases the support probably extends to the retrospective legacy
literature as this is not a great source of potential revenue and many
more journals (e.g., Science) already support self-archiving after an
interval -- from 6 months to three years -- after the publication date.

(3) Although making a university's past research output openly
accessible is very valuable and desirable (and doing it is to be
strongly encouraged), making its *current* research output openly
accessible is even more valuable and desirable (and even more strongly
to be encouraged!).

(4) The 55% figure is actually an estimate of the *minimum* amount of
*current* research output that universities can already self-archive
immediately, without the need to make any further request of the
publisher, or any change in the copyright transfer of licensing
agreement. http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#copyright1

(5) The challenge with self-archiving (whether current or legacy research
output) is not, and has never been, publishers or copyright. Publishers
will cooperate, in the interests of science and scholarship.
http://www.stm-assoc.org/infosharing/springconference-prog.html

(6) The real challenge is establishing a systematic institutional
self-archiving policy that will ensure the speedy self-archiving of
research output. The library can help
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#libraries-do
especially by offering a proxy self-archiving service
e.g. http://eprints.st-andrews.ac.uk/proxy_archive.html
but it is the university and its departments that need to strongly
encourage or even mandate self-archiving by its researchers
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/archpolnew.html
their policy backed up by the research funding agencies
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue35/harnad/

But going after retrospective research is a good idea too. I hope
universities that have been implementing this will reply and share their
experience.

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 September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01 & 02 & 03):

    http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
                            or
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html

Discussion can be posted to: american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org
Received on Sat Sep 13 2003 - 04:05:38 BST

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