On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 11:33 PM, Heather Morrison <[email protected]> wrote: In the unlikely event that the U.S. decides to change its copyright laws to block open access, a "Plan B" for OA that seems a good fit for the US context is expanding the Harvard-style mandate approach.
It is not at all clear what Heather means by "expanding the Harvard-style mandate approach." Harvard's current mandate is a partial copyright-retention mandate, allowing embargoed OA and author opt-out. with no Immediate Deposit Clause or "email eprint request" Button. If NIH tried to adopt that mandate, it would not only become even more vulnerable to the publisher lobby, but it would introduce an opt-out, making its mandate no longer a mandate. That's not a Plan B, it's an Exit Strategy. Universities, unlike governments, are not vulnerable to publisher lobbies. But Harvard's mandate is itself in need of an upgrade to add Immediate Deposit with no opt-out (plus the Button): http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/364-guid.html As Stevan Harnad has pointed out, OA is unstoppable; once researchers fully grasp its benefits, they will take matters into their own hands, and make it happen. The sheer absurdity of this approach can only help! Absurdity never helps. A Plan B needs to be clearly and fully thought through. Stevan Harnad
