On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 3:41 PM, Alma Swan <a.s...@talk21.com> wrote:
> Yes, EOS is on board. > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Jean-Claude Guédon <jean.claude.gue...@umontreal.ca> > *To:* goal@eprints.org > *Sent:* Friday, 13 July 2012, 15:19 > *Subject:* [GOAL] Re: Reaching for the Reachable > > Thank you, Stevan, for this useful summary. > > Now remains the question: how do we multiply mandates and how do we > implement them? > > Peter has suggested a high-level meeting to create momentum. I support the > high-level meeting idea and provided some hypotheses about it that are > aimed at boosting the green road. Keith, a member of the board on EOS, is > on board.-- > > I seem to have catalyzed not only discussion but some action (though I am unclear what that is). I will try to be constructive. Preamble: The current situation is a mess, progress is slow and there is little unified action. We spend our time criticising each other rather than changing the world. We need to try something different. That does not mean that exhortations for mandates and sponsorship for Gold are not valuable, but simply repeating their value ritually doesn't gain massive change. Many scholars and librarians are scared of publishers and dramatically err on the side of excessive caution. We often forget that (a) we scholars and funders create the material and (b) pay for it (10 billion USD). That ought to give us serious bargaining rights, but we don't use them. It ought to mean *we* control the market, not the publishers. So my suggestion was for new, dramatic, brave action. I suggested that the Universities assert their rights to publish their output to the world (that is what *I* see as Open Access). My fairytale was based on a real case. In the early 1960's the UK obscenity laws prohited the use of everyday words and this restricted literature. So Penguin books challenged this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Chatterley%27s_Lover#British_obscenity_trial. They deliberately challenged the law by publishing the book and defended it as being of literary merit. They won, and the law was changed. IMO it was a really important step forward. So my proposal was to find 20 VCs who would challenge the *apparent* law forbidding them to publish their own output. They would simply publish their own work openly. They would have massive moral right on their side (the work is theirs, it was publicly funded and the public needs it). This might we come to trial, and IMO that would be beneficial. The tradition - at least in England (sic) is that bad laws can be challenged and the spirit rather than the letter will, from time to time, prevail. The reason for choosing VCs, not academics is that they can take action unilaterally. They can get the material and post it without any help from their authors and without publishers stopping them (at least if they all act simultaneously). It's morally and technically identical to LadyC. It requires 20 VCs who are prepared to be brave and are able to find some resources. That was my proposal. [I have changed the title of the subject to reflect it.] It was immediately changed by SH to "why don't we lobby 20VCs to manadte Green Open Access". This has seriously confused the discussion. This may or may not be a useful thing to do but I have no interest in it and it is not my proposal. If J-C and EOS are supporting the SH proposal I will shut up. If the proposal is to have a discussion with 20 VCs that is nothing new and seems to be what EOS does anyway. But that's not me either. The fundamentals of my proposal were: * unilateral action by a small group of prominent universities * a challenge to the existing system based on moral grounds and very probably good legal grounds * high public visibility (this will show the non-ivory world that universities care about them, which is certainly not apparent at present. I am happy for the details of this proposal to be changed, but those aspects should remain. Something practical may emerge. And please, list members, refrain from shouting me down and asserting the Green agenda yet again. It is counterproductive. Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069
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