Dear Rosalind,
I'm very sorry you're leaving the AmSci Forum, and especially sorry you're
leaving with the feelings you have. I am grateful for your having launched the
Forum when you were at AmSci, for selecting me to moderate it, and for all your
support througout the many ensuing years; this rather severe criticism from you
came as something of a shock to me, but I appreciate your letting me know.
Let me just add something factual with which I don't think you will disagree: OA
has been stagnating at a flat 15% throughout the dozen years that began with the
AmSci Forum.Â
For the sake of OA (which I really believe to be beneficial), I would have been
more than happy to use either (1) the "public access to publicly funded
research" argument, (2) the "open science/transparency" argument, (3) the
"double-pay" argument for Gold OA (even though I happen to think all three are
specious) if any had actually induced researchers to provide OA. But none has
done so to any detectable extent.
And that's why six years ago the Forum's focus was changed to focus on
concrete,
practical OA policy-making. By then all ideological considerations had already
been aired many times over.
My hobby horse is indeed OA mandates for the sake of research access, and there
are very few of those as yet either.
But, when adopted, the mandates really do work.Â
If mine's the wrong hobby horse, then I will have squandered a dozen years for
naught, and something else will eventually induce researchers to provide OA (or
maybe OA was never destined to happen).
But it's by now certain that neither (1) Â the "public access to publicly funded
research" argument nor (2) "open science/transparency" argument, nor (3) the
library's "double-pay" argument (which is even older than OA and has been aired
by librarians time and time again in their struggles with the serials
affordability crisis) has been any more successful to date than my hobby horse
in actually inducing researchers to provide OA.
Nor is there any way to translate any of the arguments into practical action --
other than mandates. You note that you believe the real reason why the (few)
institutions that have adopted mandates to date was either (1), (2), or (3) or
some combination (perhaps including researcher access too).
You may be right.
Or maybe banging on relentlessly about making research accessible to its
intended users (researchers) in order to maximize research uptake, impact and
progress, and, in turn, for the benefits of research progress to the public (and
the eventual easing of the library's serials burden) might eventually turn out
to have been the effective rationale after all. And perhaps that could only be
appreciated and acted upon globally once the alternative ideological rationales
had proven themselves to be insufficient, ineffectual or incoherent.
Either way, you have my unending gratitude for your help across all these years,
Best wishes,
Stevan
PS There are many scientific and scholarly monographs that report research, and
sometimes in ways that are more "accessible" to the lay public (i.e., more
comprehensible) than refereed journal articles. But there's no way currently to
mandate making those books OA if their authors and publishers don't want to do
it. As to "open science/transparency": Â since all research is published, it's
hardly being kept a secret! What's missing (even for Harvard scientists and
scholars) is researcher access to all refereed journal articles (and, no, even
Harvard cannot afford paid access to all journals). As it happens, if you
mandate OA for the sake of researcher access, public "openness" automatically
comes with the territory. So the real question is: What will induce researchers
to provide it at long last? You set a lot of store by openness/transparency as
the inducement. I hope that one of us, at least, eventually turns out to be
right, and that it won't be another 12 years before it comes to pass....
On 2011-11-25, at 8:45 AM, Rosalind Reid wrote:
Hello Stevan,
Just a farewell note. I'm finally leaving the AmSci Forum list
because I have grown so tired of watching you ride your own
particular hobbyhorse that I simply have to leave the room. Below is
the message that was the last straw. You made it crisply clear, for
the nth time, that you not only have no interest in fairness
arguments having to do with making science open and transparent, you
also refuse to listen to them and in every case reflexively urge
others to shut their mouths and ears.
Such arguments are, to me, as compelling as any argument based on
access for researchers. Furthermore, you well know that the
traditional publishing system is subsidized to give scholars access
(through libraries). The leg you attempt to stand on is a fine
argument for library funding and even more liberal policies of
library access but truly fails as a sufficient argument for open
access online.
(And books--what a red herring! You well know that secondary
literature--books, magazines, TV programs etc.--is not primary
research output. It is not generally what the taxpayer funds. I
believe the term for a supposedly logical argument  that relies on
irrelevant facts is "specious".)
I work now at an institution where investigators have access to more
or less anything they want. Those faculty who are participating in
the Harvard repository are not, as far as I know, doing so for
"Harnad reasons." I urge you to respect the motivational power and
the principles of those who advocate true open access and even real
reform that embraces principles of social responsibility. But others
have urged you to, and so I have no illusion that you will ever move
your tent to be with the other "occupiers" of science publishing.
There are many voices on the list that I will miss. Your shrill one
I will not. I believe that I was the very first subscriber to the
list so long ago. I thought you deserved a farewell, and perhaps I
wanted to finally, albeit privately, get a word in. There would have
been no point in saying these things on the list; I have no real
standing in this matter as you see it, not being a researcher
myself, and you would simply have snapped back with your usual
arguments. Too bad.
Ros
Begin forwarded message:
From: Stevan Harnad <[email protected]>
Date: November 22, 2011 9:06:47 PM EST
To:
[email protected]
Subject: Re: Double-Pay Double-Talk: Not a good
justification for Open Access
Reply-To: American Scientist Open Access Forum
<[email protected]>
On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 11:57 AM, Michael Eisen
<[email protected]> wrote:
Under the current model members of the
public who
want to access a paper are paying for THE
PAPER twice. They are heavily
subsidizing the subscriptions that pay for
journals - providing far more
than the cost of publishing through indirect
costs and other means. And then
they're paying again to access the article
themselves.
I wish it were that simple, Mike, but it's not.
On Fri, 18 Nov 2011, Stevan Harnad wrote:
Are tax-payers paying twice when
universities pay to buy for their users
books based on tax-payer funded scholarly
and scientific research?
If not, then tax-payers are not "paying
twice" when universities pay to buy journal
subscriptions for their users either.
(Whereas if so, then Open Access is up
against a far, far bigger obstacle than
journal subscription access barriers: They
are up against the entire book industry,
including both its publishers and its
authors. And US research funder mandates
cannot and will not change that.)
Please let's stick to the fair, real,
realistic and unassailable rationale for
mandating open access:
Research is funded (by the tax payer) and
conducted and published (by the researcher)
so that its findings can be accessed, used
and built upon by its primary intended users
(researchers) for the benefit of the
tax-payer and research progress.
