Mike Eisen, in his splendid, timely op-ed article, is completely right
that the publisher anti-OA lobby's attempts to embargo open access and
roll back what OA progress has been made is abominable. There is every
reason to hope and expect that the attempt will backfire on them as it
did the last time, when they hired Eric Dezenhall to fight NIH's
Public Access Policy almost exactly a half decade ago:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7126/full/445347a.html
Steve Hitchcock is quite right to point out that what HR3699 is aimed
at is NIH's open access self-archiving mandate, and that cancelling
journals when their articles are not otherwise accessible is not a
realistic option for institutional libraries (since their researchers
still need access to them). To go in this direction would just be to
repeat the failed strategy of over a decade ago, of threatening to
boycott non-OA journals: http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/
What is needed is OA, and that's OA mandates mandate. David Prosser is
quite right that the obstacle is not libraries but researchers (and
Thomas Krichel is quite spectacularly wrong): Not enough researchers
self-archive their articles of their own accord; that's why OA
self-archiving mandates have turned out to be so essential.
With a few blips still, the OA movement is converging on a consensus
on both the problem and the solution:
Problem: Access-denial to non-subscribers, resulting in lost research
uptake and impact, and hence lost return on the public investment in
research
Solution: Mandate OA self-archiving,
PR's 'pit bull' takes on open access (Jan 2007)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7126/full/445347a.html
Pit-Bulls vs. Petitions: A Historic Time for Open Access (Jan 2007)
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/200-guid.html (Jan 2007)
A Tale of Fleas, Tails, Dogs, and Pit-Bulls... (Feb 2007)
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/208-guid.html
The Publishing Tail Wagging the Research Dog (Aug 2007)
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/277-guid.html
Research Works Act H.R.3699: The Private Publishing Tail Trying To Wag
The Public Research Dog, Yet Again (Jan 2012)
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/867-guid.html
On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 8:12 AM, Steve Hitchcock sh...@ecs.soton.ac.uk wrote:
If UKCoRR's voice may not be overly loud (yet) then I'm glad to see Gareth
trying to make it louder. But I have some concerns in this case. Does this
post confuse SOPA and RWA? They seem to be referred to interchangeably,
connected by AAP. Gareth concludes by committing UKCoRR to oppose SOPA, but
not RWA.
More pertinently, since this is the voice of UK repositories, what can
repositories do beyond oppose SOPA and RWA (presumably both)? There are
implications in the proposed legislation that are hugely negative for
repositories, of course, but there is also a need to guard against
instinctive reactions - anti-publisher inevitably but with e.g. calls to
abandon library journal subscriptions
(http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/research-bought-then-paid-for.html?)
- that are also ultimately antithetical to repositories.
In promoting and protecting the role of repositories in this highly-charged
atmosphere, UKCoRR should also consider carefully the wider effects of the
proposals with reference to the interdependencies of green open access on
which they depend.
Oppose the proposed legislation for the detriment it seeks to introduce and
lay open the indefensible complicity of the publishers who support it,
without defusing that message by invoking old enmities.
Steve Hitchcock
WAIS Group, Building 32
School of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
Email: sh...@ecs.soton.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevehit
Connotea: http://www.connotea.org/user/stevehit
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 9379 Â Â Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 9379
On 11 Jan 2012, at 12:07, Tate, Dominic wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
You may be interested to see a blog post from the UKCoRR Chair, Gareth
Johnson, in response to this matter:
http://ukcorr.blogspot.com/2012/01/sopa-and-app-dumb-and-dumber-publishers.html
With best wishes,
Dominic Tate
UKCoRR External Liaison Officer
Phone: 01784 276619
Email: dominic.t...@rhul.ac.uk
-Original Message-
From: Repositories discussion list [mailto:jisc-repositor...@jiscmail.ac.uk]
On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: 08 January 2012 00:12
To: jisc-repositor...@jiscmail.ac.uk
Subject: Research Works Act H.R.3699: The Private Publishing Tail Trying
Again To Wag The Public Research Dog
** Cross-Posted **
Full hyperlinked text:
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/867-guid.html
EXCERPT:
The US Research Works Act (H.R.3699):
No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise
engage in any policy, program, or other activity that -- (1) causes,
permits, or authorizes
