Open Access Archivangelism

The following query came up on the UKCORR mailing list:

"I was surprised to read the paragraph below under author's rights":

"[you retain] the right to post a revised personal version of the text of the final journal article (to reflect changes made in the peer review process) on your personal or institutional web site or server for scholarly purposes, incorporating the complete citation and with link to the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of the article (but not in subject-oriented or centralized repositories or institutional repositories with mandates for systematic postings unless there is a specific agreement with the publisher - see [here] agreements for further information)"

You can't blame Elsevier's Perplexed Permissions Personnel for trying: After all, if researchers -- clueless and cowed about copyright -- have already lost nearly two decades of research access and impact for no reason at all, making it clear that only if/when they are required (mandated) by their institutions and funders will they dare to do what is manifestly in their own best interests and already fully within their reach, then it's only natural that those who perceive their own interests to be in conflict with those of research and researchers will attempt to see whether they cannot capitalize on researchers' guileless gullibility, yet again.

In three words, the above "restrictions" on the green light to make author's final drafts OA are (1) arbitrary, (2) incoherent, and (3) unenforceable. They are the rough equivalent of saying: You have "the right to post a revised personal version of the text of the final journal article (to reflect changes made in the peer review process) on your personal or institutional web site or server for scholarly purposes -- but not if you are required to do so by your institution or funder."

They might as well have added "or if you have a blue-eyed uncle who prefers tea to toast on alternate Tuesdays."

My own inclination is to say that if researchers prove to be stupid enough to fall for that, then they deserve everything that is coming to them (or rather, withheld from them).

But even I, seasoned cynic that the last 20 years have made me, don't believe that researchers are quite that stupid -- though I wouldn't put it past SHERPA/Romeo to go ahead and solemnly enshrine this latest bit of double-talk in one of its slavish lists of "Restrictions" on a publisher's otherwise "green" self-archiving policy, thereby helpfully furnishing an effective pseudo-official megaphone for every such piece of optimistic gibberish a publisher ventures to float, no matter how absurd.

My advice to authors (if, unlike what the sensible computer scientists and physicists have been doing all along -- namely, self-archiving for two decades without first seeking anyone's blessing -- they only durst self-archive if their publishers have first given them their green light to do so) is that they take their publishers at their word when they do give them their green light to do so, and ignore any SHERPA/Romeo tommy-rot their publishers may try to append to that green light to make it seem as if there is any rational line that can be drawn between "yes, you may make your refereed final draft OA" and "no, you may not make your refereed final draft OA."

For those who are interested in knowing what is actually happening, worldwide, insofar as OA self-archiving is concerned, I recommend reading Peter Suber's stirring 2010 Summary of real progress rather than the sort of pseudo-legalistic smoke-screening periodically emitted by Permissions Department Pundits (whether or not not they are canonized by SHERPA-Romeo).

Dixit,

Your Weary and Wizened Archivangelist

PS If you think my dismay is less with a publisher having a go at floating some self-serving obfuscation than with an OA service providing a channel for amplifying that obfuscation, then you've caught my drift! But don't forget that the lion's share of the dismay is reserved for the feckless research community, crouched in Zeno's Paralysis for two decades now...