Open Access Archivangelism

All the author opinions cited by U. Utah librarian Rick Anderson in his recent UKSG squib are familiar ones, based largely on author ignorance. Their rebuttals have been known for years (e.g., the self-archiving FAQ since 2001 and even earlier in the AmSci OA Forum). Most are covered in this:

Harnad, S. (2006) Opening Access by Overcoming Zeno's Paralysis, in Jacobs, N., Eds. Open Access: Key Strategic, Technical and Economic Aspects, chapter 8. Chandos.

The very same prima facie author objections would no doubt have been voiced if authors had been polled in advance on the (universal) mandate to publish or perish.

Although it’s unclear what his underlying motivation is, Utah librarian Rick Anderson has consistently sounded like a publisher’s advocate (or subscription agent!) for years and years now, and in his UKSG squib he is simply citing the persistence of author ignorance and the status quo as evidence and justification for the persistence of author ignorance and the status quo!

The remedy, of course, is effective global Green OA mandates.

Green OA and Green OA mandates grow anarchically, article by article and institution/funder by institution/funder, rather than journal by journal. So journals can only be cancelled once all or almost all of their contents are accessible via Green OA — and that day arrives only when Green OA and effective Green OA mandates have become global and are generating full or almost full compliance.

Harnad, S (2014) The only way to make inflated journal subscriptions unsustainable: Mandate Green Open Access. LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog 4/28

---

On past postings by Rick Anderson:

More Skulduggery from SSP's Scholarly Scullery February 15. 2014

The Need to Upgrade All OA Mandates to Add Immediate-Institutional-Deposit Requirement December 14. 2013

Spurning the Better to Keep Burning for the Best October 11. 2013

Openness Probe for the SSP Scholarly Scullery September 27. 2013

Is the Library Community Friend or Foe of OA? September 16. 2013

Librarians Applauding Embargoes on Open Access to Research Findings? May 4. 2007

Peter Suber's Fair and Gentle But Firm Rejoinders to OA Opponents March 27. 2007

"Hungary Offers Olive Branch to U.S." Wall Street Journal, 13 January 2015

That’s rather rich:

1. The US government denies entry to high Hungarian officials, including the head of the Hungarian IRS, a personal friend of the prime minister, Viktor Orban, for corruption (e.g., what amounts to demanding bribes from US companies for doing business in Hungary).

2. Orban (who calls all the shots in what he calls his “illiberal state”), instead of honestly and transparently investigating the corruption charges, demands that the US goverrnment do the investigation and provide the evidence, accuses the US of trying to manipulate Hungary for US purposes, and publicly orders the head of the Hungarian IRS to either sue the American embassy chargeé d’affaires (the US messenger) for defamation or be fired from her job.

3. And now Orban extends an “olive branch”: “Let’s let bygones be bygones. Forget these corruption charges. Back to business as usual.”

There is something profoundly rotten going on in Hungary these days. Media control and other shenanigans have so far prevented the electorate from smelling it, for two terms, but by now the stench is becoming overwhelming internationally, and it’s even beginning to get through to the noses of the Hungarian citizenry, who have been demonstrating nonviolently in growing numbers for Orban’s ouster.

Orban, with his US “olive branch” in one hand, has publicly floated threats to amend the lawshttp://openaccess.eprints.org/ of public assembly to put an end to this public unrest as part of a “national defence plan” to protect Hungary from the foreign forces fomenting these expressions of dissatisfaction from his unruly citizenry for their sinister, anti-Hungarian purposes...

Go figure.

Today's transitional period for peer-reviewed journal publishing -- when both the price of subscribing to conventional journals and the price of publishing in open-access journals ("Gold OA") is grossly inflated by obsolete costs and services -- is hardly the time to inflate costs still further by paying peer reviewers.

Institutions and funders need to mandate the open-access self-archiving of all published articles first ("Green OA"). This will make subscriptions unsustainable, forcing journals to downsize to providing only peer review, leaving access-provision and archiving to the distributed global network of institutional repositories. The price per submitted paper of managing peer review -- since peers review, and always reviewed for free -- is low, fair, affordable and sustainable, on a no-fault basis (irrespective of whether the paper is accepted or rejected: accepted authors should not have to subsidize the cost of rejected papers).

Let's get there first, before contemplating whether we really want to raise that cost yet again, this time by paying peers.

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 (2014) The only way to make inflated journal subscriptions unsustainable: Mandate Green Open Access. LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog 4/28 h

It would be a lot better if the Netherlands adopted a policy requiring Dutch researchers to make their published research OA rather than fussing about publishing costs and the costs of OA publishing.

Harnad, S (2014) The only way to make inflated journal subscriptions unsustainable: Mandate Green Open Access. LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog 4/28