Re: "Open Access and Retrieval: Liberating the Scholarly Literature" Stevan Harnad 18 Dec 2003 15:16 UTC
On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Gerry Mckiernan wrote: In "Open Access and Retrieval: Liberating the Scholarly Literature" http://www.haworthpressinc.com/store/sampletext/4879.pdf Gerry Mckiernan wrote: > "Whether the self-archiving model becomes the new paradigm for > scholarly publishing as envisioned by its proponents will depend not > only on improved archiving and retrieval software and systems but > also, and more importantly, on the degree to which all stakeholders > endorse and embrace its potential as a viable and sustainable > publishing alternative." Gerry's article is a very helpful contribution to hastening the open-access era, but "the self-archiving model" is not a "new paradigm for scholarly publishing," nor is it a "publishing alternative." Open-access self-archiving (OAA) is merely one of the two components of the Unified Open-Access Provision Strategy (though it is the larger, faster and surer component): UNIFIED OPEN-ACCESS PROVISION STRATEGY: (OAJ) Researchers publish their research in an open-access journal if a suitable one exists, otherwise (OAA) they publish it in a suitable toll-access journal and also self-archive it in their own research institution's open-access research archive. Nor is open access about "scholarly publishing" as a whole: just about the 2,500,000 annual articles in the world's 24,000 peer-reviewed journals. (Sorry to have to be such a grouch, always carping about these details! But open-access is within reach and long-overdue, and it is mainly such persistent systematic misunderstandings that keep holding us back from the optimal and inevitable outcome!) http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#self-archiving-vs-publication Stevan Harnad NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open access to the peer-reviewed research literature online is available at the American Scientist Open Access Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01 & 02 & 03): http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/september98-forum.html http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html Post discussion to: september98-forum@amsci-forum.amsci.org Unified Dual Open-Access-Provision Policy: BOAI-2 ("gold"): Publish your article in a suitable open-access journal whenever one exists. http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#journals BOAI-1 ("green"): Otherwise, publish your article in a suitable toll-access journal and also self-archive it. http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/ http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml