> On Tue, 27 Mar 2001 David Goodman <[email protected]> wrote: > > Having free access after a year is clearly not as good as having it > immediately. But it is better than never having it.
Agree completely. (Why would you think otherwise? "Too Little, Too Late" does not imply "Worse Than Nothing".) > I cannot see how one approach will harm the other. Of course we should > have free universal archiving, both discipline and university based. But > while we have the existing journals as they are, let's make > the best use of them we can. No harm from boycotts, and if they succeed, they achieve the same end, the freeing of the literature, as I have said repeatedly. But there is harm in confusion and uninformedness. Researchers need to know that boycotts are slow and uncertain, whereas self-archiving is immediate and certain (and not incompatible with boycotting, if one wishes). (And there is definitely potential harm in promoting untested peer review reform proposals, especially in a climate where fears about compromising peer review are holding researchers back from self-archiving.) > People will publish in whatever way gives their work best exposure to > those who matter to them, and that carry the highest prestige. The > balance of these two factors will vary from person to person, as well > as from field to field. All things being equal, people will do what they are already in the habit of doing. They need to be informed about the alternatives, the probabilities, and the consequences. You may be satisfied with the level of understanding that researchers have of what's at stake here and what the options are, but I am afraid I am not. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Stevan Harnad [email protected] Professor of Cognitive Science [email protected] Department of Electronics and phone: +44 23-80 592-582 Computer Science fax: +44 23-80 592-865 University of Southampton http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/ Highfield, Southampton http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/ SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01): http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html You may join the list at the site above. Discussion can be posted to: [email protected]
