Hello!
Stevan Harnad wrote:
> (1) I will wager everything and anything I own that the main thing that
> has been holding back IR deposits is keystroke inertia.
Wow! I'm impressed by your conviction (or lack of materialism! :-))!
However, I'd be curious to know if any repository managers on this list
agree that keystroke inertia is the main reason. I think the picture is
vastly more complicated than just keystrokes - the mistrust of Open
Access and what it might do for an academics career for example.
> (2) The way to remedy keystroke inertia is not to ask for even more
> keystrokes!
Or any keystrokes - so why bother with repositories at all as by this
premise they are a barrier to self-archiving in themselves?
> (3) I /profoundly/ doubt that if an article lacks some key keywords,
> they cannot be inferred by smart text-processing software.
Well, maybe. (Indeed, I tried http://tinyurl.com/62bmvk and it worked.
"World War I" does not appear on that front page so something clever
(and in other situations irritating) is happening). But a slapdash
attitude to deposit seems dangerous and asking for trouble - it implies
too much faith in technology to solve our problems and look where that
is getting us in other aspects of life!
Maybe I'm old fashioned, maybe I'm just cautious. Probably I'm both! :-)
Pete Cliff
Research Officer, UKOLN
|