Stevan Harnad writes > > oh I know. It's because libraries are spending money on subscriptions. > > And as long as they do, OA remains evitable. > > That’s about as useful as saying that "I know why there is poverty: > because the rich are rich and the poor are poor."
No. I theorise about the source of the non-transition to open access. Your statement describes a fact. > Not only is it not possible to treat “libraries” as if they were a monolith > any more than it is possible to treat “authors” as a monolith, Yes, I should have mentioned "libraries" as research libraries meaning engaged in procurement of documents that we commonly think as potential subjects to open access. I did not have prison libraries providing a copy of the bible in mind. But I thought it would be commonly understood here. > it is completely out of the question for a university library > to cancel subscriptions while its users have no other means to > access that content. I completely reject that argument but let's even for a moment assume it were correct. Current subscriptions concern papers written by current authors that are likely to be alive. The authors can always send a version of the paper to a reader upon her request. Therefore readers always have a different means to access the paper. Therefore your argument can not support the subscription expense. And even if the authors of a paper were all to die shortly after publication. Then yes, it may be reasonable to ask the library to purchase a copy of the paper from the non-OA publisher. But there rare instances should not be used to justify the expense of subscriptions. -- Cheers, Thomas Krichel http://openlib.org/home/krichel skype:thomaskrichel _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
