[OAI-eprints] Re: "Open Access and Retrieval: Liberating the Scholarly Literature"

[Stevan Harnad]

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 at 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