Open Access Archivangelism

1. Research libraries cannot, need not and will not cancel (important) journals until all or almost all their contents are freely accessible to their users by some other means.

2. Boycott-threatening authors cannot, need not and will not stop publishing in or refereeing for their best journals: It is neither necessary nor realistic. There are easier and better ways to make those journals' contents freely accessible.

3. Researchers cannot, need not and will not stop serving on the editorial boards of their best journals. It is neither necessary nor realistic. There are easier and better ways to make those journals' contents freely accessible.

4. Research and researchers cannot, need not and will not abandon peer review. It is neither necessary nor realistic. There are easier and better ways to make journals' contents freely accessible.

5. Journals cannot, need not and will not convert to Gold Open Access publishing today: That would simply make OA as unaffordable as subscription access (at current prices).

6. What those who are preoccupied with journal pricing and economics keep overlooking is that the one and only reason it matters so much that journals are overpriced and unaffordable is that there is no other way for would-be users to access their contents.

7. Hence only one course of action is realistic, feasible and makes sense: It will remedy the accessibility problem completely and it will eventually drive down journal expenses and prices as well as induce a conversion to Gold OA publishing at an affordable rate.

8. That course of action is for universities and research funders to mandate Green OA self-archiving.

9. Once Green OA self-archiving becomes universal because it is universally mandated, the research accessibility problem is solved.

10. Once the research accessibility problem is solved, journal affordability is no longer a life-or-death matter: libraries can cancel unaffordable journals because their contents are freely accessible to their users by some other means.

11. Once post-Green-OA cancellations make subscriptions unsustainable for meeting publishing costs, publishers will downsize to just the cost of peer review alone, offloading access provision and archiving onto institutional OA repositories, and converting to Gold OA publishing.

12. Universities will then have the funds to pay the much lower costs of peer review alone out of their windfall subscription cancelation savings.

Harnad, S. (2007) The Green Road to Open Access: A Leveraged Transition. In: Anna Gacs. The Culture of Periodicals from the Perspective of the Electronic Age. L'Harmattan. 99-106.

Harnad, S. (2009) The PostGutenberg Open Access Journal. In: Cope, B. & Phillips, A (Eds.) The Future of the Academic Journal. Chandos.

Harnad, S. (2010) No-Fault Peer Review Charges: The Price of Selectivity Need Not Be Access Denied or Delayed. D-Lib Magazine 16 (7/8).

Harnad, S. (2010) The Immediate Practical Implication of the Houghton Report: Provide Green Open Access Now. Prometheus, 28 (1). pp. 55-59. http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18514

Harnad, S. (2011) Open Access to Research: Changing Researcher Behavior Through University and Funder Mandates. JEDEM Journal of Democracy and Open Government 3 (1): 33-41.

Harnad, Stevan (2011) Open Access Is a Research Community Matter, Not a Publishing Community Matter. Lifelong Learning in Europe.