Barbara Kirsop wrote: > I sympathise with developing country authors who have to go through the > process of asking for a dispensation of document management charges if > they can't afford these. This doesn't feel like a level playing field. > > But I fail to understand why some of the recent correspondents to this > list are totally ignoring the BOAI-1 eprints archive route to OA.
The reason this is being ignored is that this discussion is about authors publishing their work rather than authors accessing the works of others. Secondly, this is not a discussion about our present (the status of OA journals today is such that they have no bearing on developing country authors), it is a discussion about the future. Thirdly author charges apply to OA journals only and have no bearing on OA archiving. Putting these three together we (not just developing world but also non-institutionally backed authors in the developed world) are simply arguing for the research publication match to end in the TA court. > As has been said many times already, let authors who cannot afford the > charges of publishing in OA journals (BOAI-2) continue to publish in non-OA > journals and at the same time archive their published papers in an > eprint archive. This way their research is guaranteed maximum exposure > and impact and it is achievable at almost nil cost. And in India, for > example, the first eprints archives have been set up and a series of > meetings are arranged in the sub-continent to raise awareness about the > potential of this for Indian science and to show other institutes how to > set up similar archives. As I mention above, we are not discussing the present, as that is simply what all developing country authors are doing currently (at least the publish in non-OA part). Its the future. If OA takes over at some point in the future, these authors will suffer. This will mean a hegemony of access to research publication and an end to best research being published fastest but rather paid research taking over via publishers. This will remain a problem whether we self archive or not, if the OA journal problem is not tackled first. I believe the way out, as Henderson has pointed out, is for higher education institutions to systematically increase spending on libraries so that the TA publishers need not generate revenue from individual tolls. This way they effectively become OA (can we call this OAI-3). Moreover, authors like us and a good many in the developed world too are generally ignoring the OA movement. As Henderson states, many others cannot afford to subsidize publication -- OA or otherwise. I agree with him that if this is not rectified, the OA movement will become one more dot.com scheme gone bust. May I suggest that we discuss the road to what I call OAI-3 if any one has any further ideas? Actually the website on the BOAI states for BOAI-2: http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml "Second, scholars need the means to launch a new generation of journals committed to open access, and to help existing journals that elect to make the transition to open access..." I think we should modify this initiative to read: "Third, scholars need to find mechanisms through which existing journals can make the transition to open access without the need for author tolls." Eventually that is the goal we are seeking as researchers, and this way we can achieve this without the hegemony created by the author toll access system. I welcome suggestions and comments on the implementation of such a modified OAI. Suhail
