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Begin forwarded message: > From: "Richard Poynder" <[email protected]> > Date: July 13, 2013, 5:54:05 AM EDT > To: <[email protected]> > Subject: [BOAI] Heather Joseph on the state of Open Access: Where are we, > what still needs to be done? > Reply-To: [email protected] > > The fourth Q&A in a series exploring the current state of Open Access has > been published. On this occasion the questions are answered by Heather Joseph. > > A former journal publisher, Joseph has in her time worked for both Elsevier > and the American Society for Cell Biology. In 2005, however, she changed > direction and became Executive Director for the Scholarly Publishing & > Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), an alliance of academic and research > libraries created in 1998 by the Association of Research Libraries. SPARC’s > original mission was to “use libraries’ buying power to nurture the creation > of high-quality, low-priced publication outlets for peer-reviewed scientific, > technical, and medical research.” > > Subsequently SPARC also changed direction, becoming an OA advocacy group. And > under Joseph’s able leadership SPARC has proved extremely effective at making > the case for OA, and persuading researchers, institutions, funders and > governments to embrace OA. In particular, Joseph led SPARC’s efforts to > secure the US National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy, and the > recent White House Directive on Public Access to the Results of Publicly > Funded Research. > > In May last year, for instance, Joseph — along with OA advocates John > Wilbanks and Michael Carroll, and publisher Mike Rossner — met with John > Holdren and Mike Stebbins of the US Office of Science and Technology Policy > (OSPT). As a follow-up to the meeting they organised a White House petition > calling for “free access over the Internet to scientific journal articles > arising from taxpayer-funded research”. The petition quickly attracted the > requisite 25,000 signatures needed to trigger a response from the government, > which came this February in the shape of the White House Memorandum. > > Importantly, the Memorandum directs “each Federal agency with over $100 > million in annual conduct of research and development expenditures to develop > a plan to support increased public access to the results of research funded > by the Federal Government”. > > But for me there is no better evidence of the efficacy of SPARC’s activities > than the contents of an exchange I had a couple of years ago with an employee > of one of the larger traditional scholarly publishers. When I suggested that > perhaps publishers ought to stop lobbying against OA and learn to love it, my > interlocutor’s face expressed a complicated mix of emotions — including > exasperation and muted anger, but also (I felt) some admiration for the OA > movement. He replied, “It’s not just publishers who are lobbying you know.” > Then a few seconds later he added, “I’ll tell you what, if you can get SPARC > to stop lobbying against us we will stop lobbying against Open Access.” > > Since then the OA movement has gone from strength to strength, in what has > become a classic David and Goliath contest — a smallish group of impecunious > but tireless OA advocates lined up against an army of well-heeled > corporations determined to stop them. > > But how things will end we do not yet know. What is certain, as Joseph > concedes, is that “much still needs to be done” before the OA movement can > claim to have succeeded in its aims. > > Earlier contributors to this series include palaeontologist Mike Taylor, > cognitive scientist Stevan Harnad, and former librarian Fred Friend. > > Joseph’s Q&A can be read here: > > http://poynder.blogspot.in/2013/07/heather-joseph-on-state-of-open-access.html > > > > -- > To unsubscribe from the BOAI Forum, use the form on this page: > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/boai-forum
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