Re: Select Committee Inquiry into Scientific Publication Stevan Harnad 13 Jan 2004 00:49 UTC

On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, Sally Morris wrote:

> I think the CILIP response ignores the fact that new licensing arrangements
> from publishers have actually significantly increased the percentage of
> available literature which library patrons can now access.  I'm not saying
> it's anything like 100 percent, but it is much improved

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0401&L=lis-cilip&T=0&F=&S=&P=2176
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3407.html

Licensing improves the return on the tolls for the HAVES who can afford
the tolls. Open access is about the HAVE-NOTS who cannot afford the
tolls.

The relevant facts are these:

(1) There are 24,000 peer-reviewed research journals worldwide, publishing
2.5 million articles per year.

(2) 23,000 of these 24,000 (>95%) are toll-access journals. (Tolls
are: subscriptions, licenses, pay-to-view.)

(3) It is true of every single toll-access article that (the institutions
of) most its potential users worldwide cannot afford access to it, no
matter how good the licensing arrangements. (Call that the worldwide
"HARVARD/HAVE-NOT" ratio.)

(4) The above (3) would continue to be true even if every one of the
toll-access journals were sold *at cost."

(5) Consequently, the research community and the progress, productivity
and impact of research require that toll-access for the HARVARDS be
supplemented with open-access for the HAVE-NOTS, regardless of the
licensing arrangements.

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 http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#29.Sitting

Stevan Harnad

NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open
access to the peer-reviewed research literature online (1998-2004)
is available at the American Scientist Open Access Forum:
        To join the Forum:
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
        Post discussion to:
    american-scientist-open-access-forum@amsci.org
        Hypermail Archive:
    http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html

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
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/berlin.htm