Indeed, and there is room for every opinion on this list because there
are all kinds of different motivations that might lead our academics to
engage with repositories and to deposit in them. Open access and the
not-for-profit agenda are not exactly the same goal, and not-for-profit
arguments can get in the way of Stevan's main goal of getting the
research accessible to all. Repository managers' main goal, though, is
to get academics motivated to deposit in whatever way we can! Our
repository's performance is measured by our community's engagement with
it and our survival and resourcing depend upon deposits. 

I'm sure that Stevan would point out that the ultimate motivation is a
mandate (hope you don't mind my anticipating you there, Stevan.) I do
wonder how I might force principled academics to act against their will,
even if we had a mandate! I could not and so I would like them to align
their principles with what I am trying to achieve. The not-for-profit
argument isn't one that I am dead keen to promote amongst our authors
because I believe that the same argument causes other academics to be
wary of depositing their articles on OA in our repository because they
fear that their journals will lose income and go out of business.

It's great to have Jason's article out there to point others to, who are
like-minded. But it's not going to be the core of any repository
message... We know that we need to keep that simple, and discussions
like this one prepare us for debates with authors who will all have
different perspectives.

Kind regards,

Jenny Delasalle
Chair of the UK Council of Research Repositories (UKCoRR)
http://www.ukcorr.org/

E-Repositories Manager
University of Warwick Library
Gibbet Hill Road
Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

Tel: (+44) (0) 24 765 75793
http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Repositories discussion list 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of C. M. 
> Sperberg-McQueen
> Sent: 22 October 2009 02:56
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Wrong Advice On Open Access: History Repeating Itself
> 
> On 21 Oct 2009, at 12:31 , Stevan Harnad wrote:
> 
> > On 21-Oct-09, at 1:41 PM, Patricia Galloway wrote:
> >
> >> I concur with Stephen Downes that the tone of remarks made in 
> >> response to Jason Jackson's decision and advice really 
> doesn't help 
> >> anyone. There are histories to every decision of this kind, and I 
> >> would suspect that perhaps those who have responded thus 
> to Jackson's 
> >> advice know little about the recent history of periodical 
> publication 
> >> in the field of anthropology in the US or the active 
> intervention of 
> >> research libraries in this area.
> >
> > I don't quite understand how the history of periodical 
> publication in 
> > anthropology in particular bears upon the issue under discussion, 
> > which is whether in the interests of Open Access -- and I 
> stress that 
> > this is about Open Access, free online access, not about journal 
> > prices, profits, affordability, business model -- it is 
> good advice to 
> > recommend that researchers boycott journals rather than just making 
> > their journal articles OA by self-archiving them.
> 
> But I think a careful reading -- or even a cursory reading -- 
> of Jason Baird Jackson's post makes clear that OA is *not* 
> what his essay is primarily about.
> 
> He did post his piece "in honor of" Open Access Week, and he 
> does profess to be an advocate of OA, but his focus in the 
> essay is on "steps that can be taken to build a different, 
> more accessible and progressive system of scholarly 
> communication".  And, as he says in his response to Dan 
> Eisenberg, "In my original essay I tried to be careful to 
> place the weight of my case in the direction of the 
> commercial/not-for-profit contrast rather than the open 
> access/closed access continuum."
> 
> You may disagree with his suggestion that the steps he 
> outlines will help achieve Green OA.  You may also disagree 
> with the belief that the for-profit / not-for-profit 
> distinction is an important one for those interested in 
> building a different system of scholarly publishing.
> 
> But your disagreeing with him does not, surely, give you a 
> right to wave your hand and decree that his essay was not, 
> after all, about reducing the power of for-profit publishers, 
> but was instead about how best to accelerate adoption of Green OA.
> 
> Surely being interested in Open Access does not require a 
> zero-tolerance policy for interest in other topics and goals?
> 
> --
> ****************************************************************
> * C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Black Mesa Technologies LLC
> * http://www.blackmesatech.com
> * http://cmsmcq.com/mib
> * http://balisage.net
> ****************************************************************
>