On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 4:06 PM, Stevan Harnad <amscifo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ** Cross-Posted **
>
> On Sat, May 12, 2012 at 4:49 PM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm...@cam.ac.uk>
> wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, May 12, 2012 at 9:10 PM, Stevan Harnad <amscifo...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >
> > Stevan,
> > Could you please explain this clause? (This is my ignorance as I don't
> > publish with Elevier and so am unfamiliar with their author-side
> contracts).
> > Does it mean that Elsevier sometimes allows Green Open Access and
> sometimes don't?
>
> It means that Elsevier formally endorses its authors' right to make
> their final, peer-reviewed drafts Open Access immediately upon
> publication (no embargo) by posting them on their institutional
> website (Green Gratis OA) -- "but not in institutional repositories
> with mandates for systematic postings."
>
> It is exactly this sort of clause - usually badly written - that is
widespread in publishers documents (if you can even find them). Just
remember that *we* pay for their lawyers' salaries. The strategy is common
and exemplified by Ross Mounce's work on licences. Make it complex and make
it different from every other publisher. Never use a single
community-agreed approach.
If the publishers wanted to make it simple and professional it could have
been done a decade ago. It's not hard. A protocol and licence saying what
could/not be done in Green OA.
What I worry about is that the publishers can change the rules whenever
they feel like. They are quit capable of saying it's "Green" just as Wiley
has done for highly paid "Fully Open Access" (not even as green as Stevan
is asking for).
The point is that these rules are made by people who don't care about
scholarly publishing. The sooner we admit we are dealing with an industry
every bit as lovable as bankers the sooner we'll put in place *our* rules
and not theirs.
> The distinction between an institutional website and an institutional
> repository is bogus.
>
> Of course it is. Unless you are trying to appear helpful and trying not to
be.
> The distinction between nonmandatory posting (allowed) and mandatory
> posting (not allowed) is arbitrary nonsense. ("You retain the right to
> post if you wish but not if you must!")
>
Of course it is. It takes a highly paid marketeer to dream that up.
>
> The "systematic" criterion is also nonsense. (Systematic posting would
> be the institutional posting of all the articles in the journal; but
> any single institution only contributes a tiny, arbitrary fraction of
> the articles in any journal, just as any single author does; so the
> mandating institution would not be a 3rd-party "free-rider" on the
> journal's content: its researchers would simply be making their own
> articles OA, by posting them on their institutional website, exactly
> as described.)
>
> This "systematic" clause is hence pure FUD, designed to scare or bully
> or confuse institutions into not mandating posting, and authors into
> not complying with their institutional mandates. (There are also
> rumours that in confidential licensing negotiations with institutions,
> Elsevier has been trying to link bigger and better pricing deals to
> the institution's agreeing not to adopt a Green OA mandate.)
>
> That's why I raised it a few days ago. We are dealing with people many of
whose staff have probably never seen a scholarly pub.
> Along with the majority of publishers today, Elsevier is a Green
> publisher: It has endorsed immediate (unembargoed) institutional Green
> OA posting by its authors ever since 27 May 2004:
> http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3771.html
>
> But that is no a legally binding contract and that's the problem.
> Elsevier's public image is so bad today that rescinding its Green
> light to self-archive after almost a decade of mounting demand for OA
> is hardly a very attractive or viable option:
> http://cdn.anonfiles.com/1334923359479.pdf
> http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#32.Poisoned
>
> And double-talk, smoke-screens and FUD are even less attractive:
> http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/822-.html
>
> It will be very helpful in helping researchers to provide -- and their
> institutions and funders to mandate -- Open Access if Elsevier drops
> its "you may if you wish but not if you must" clause, which is not
> only incoherent, but intimidates authors. (This would also help
> counteract some of the rather bad press Elsevier has been getting
> lately...)
>
I actually suspect that no-one reading this list has any power to change
Elsevier policy - it's set at boardroom level by people who could be
selling soap.
--
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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