Hello Steve,

I absolutely agree about the importance of specified goals and policies,
and that these do need to be at a higher level than the IR itself. Being
aware of the whole picture does not mean that you can't also focus on
priorities, and I also agree that being able to demonstrate a return on
investment has always been a concern for repository managers. I very
much value the academic work that Stevan Harnad has done to demonstrate
the benefit of OA. 

I wonder what evidence of the value of a repository other repository
managers have found to be most compelling in their advocacy with senior
managers at institutions. If you're listening in, please do reply to let
us know! 

My own experience has been that the raising of citations grabs attention
at the highest level, so that is all about OA but I'm also aware of
other drivers, particularly the administrative/management need for data
about publishing activity which becomes acute every time the REF seems
near!

I'd be very grateful if anyone on this list could update me about the
best evidence that OA repository deposit has raised citations, as
opposed to OA more broadly.

I think there's a great deal of variety in repository managers' job
specs and that Charles' example is just one. I think that the holistic
approach is one that not only the individual repository manager could
use but it is absolutely imperative that Graham ought to have it, as
chair of UKCoRR.

Jenny Delasalle
Academic Support Manager (Research)

University of Warwick Library
Gibbet Hill Road
Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

Tel: (+44) (0) 2476 15 12 75

My blog: http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/libresearch 
Library Support for Research: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/lib-researchers 
Submit your work to WRAP: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/irsubmit



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Repositories discussion list 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steve Hitchcock
> Sent: 30 July 2010 11:55
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: The Mandate of Open Access Institutional 
> Repository Managers
> 
> Jenny,     I understand that being a repository manager is 
> not easy. Given what you say, in these difficult economic 
> times for higher education institutions, how is the 
> performance of an institutional repository, and therefore of 
> the repository manager, going to be measured? The holistic 
> approach may be worthy, but will it measure up? Is Charles' 
> job spec. a fair approximation for most repository managers? 
> I fear for those repositories that do not have clearly 
> specified goals and policies, and strong leadership and 
> management (at a higher level than the IR). I can't see this below.
> 
> Steve Hitchcock
> IAM Group, Building 32
> School of Electronics and Computer Science University of 
> Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevehit
> Connotea: http://www.connotea.org/user/stevehit
> Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 7698    Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865
> 
> On 30 Jul 2010, at 11:11, Delasalle, Jenny wrote:
> 
> > And surely the gold OA does not preclude green OA as well? Just 
> > because a publisher has already made an article available 
> on OA does 
> > not mean that the repository can't (or shouldn't) also do 
> so. Unless 
> > the publisher has the copyright and has forbidden it, of 
> course. I'd 
> > advise an author to put their article in as many places as 
> possible on 
> > OA, on the Web if their aim is to increase accessibility and 
> > discovery, whilst always pointing at the canonical 
> published version 
> > as well. In my experience, researchers like it if the canonical 
> > published version, or the "version of record" is OA, and 
> that is the gold OA model.
> > 
> > The repository game is certainly different to the 
> publication one in 
> > so far as the aims of the repository are different than 
> those of the 
> > publisher (especially all the aims of an IR - there are lots of 
> > institutional drivers beyond OA), and in that the readers' 
> discovery 
> > route is different, which is partly because of those different aims.
> > 
> > OA is a big driver for repositories. It is a big feature of 
> > repositories, but, as Charles says, a professional 
> repository manager 
> > takes a holistic approach and that means being aware of researchers'
> > broader perspectives and diverse institutional needs that 
> Graham Stone 
> > has demonstrated.
> > 
> > Jenny Delasalle
> > Academic Support Manager (Research)
> > 
> > University of Warwick Library
> > Gibbet Hill Road
> > Coventry CV4 7AL
> > United Kingdom
> > 
> > Tel: (+44) (0) 2476 15 12 75
> > 
> > My blog: http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/libresearch
> > Library Support for Research: 
> http://go.warwick.ac.uk/lib-researchers
> > Submit your work to WRAP: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/irsubmit
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Repositories discussion list
> >> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of C Oppenheim
> >> Sent: 30 July 2010 07:50
> >> To: [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject: Re: The Mandate of Open Access Institutional Repository 
> >> Managers
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Mr Stone's (and other repository managers') Job Specifications may 
> >> say something like "your job is to ensure that articles 
> produced by 
> >> staff in this University are made OA, whether by means of the 
> >> Institutional Repository or by any other means deemed 
> appropriate."  
> >> So, whilst not disagreeing with the argument that the 
> priority should 
> >> be green repositories,  repository managers  should not ignore 
> >> alternative approaches that also produce increased downloads and 
> >> citations and promote the institution's reputation.  Even if their 
> >> job specification is tied to their IR, it would be an 
> unprofessional  
> >> Repository Manager who was not  interested in the pros and cons of 
> >> alternative methods for achieving OA.
> >> Being professional means taking a holistic view of things! I see 
> >> nothing incompatible therefore between Mr Stone's remarks 
> and being 
> >> chairman of UKCoRR.
> >> 
> >> And before Stevan explodes  at this posting, let me say  (yet
> >> again) that I am a strong supporter of the green approach 
> to OA.  But 
> >> I am not blind to the existence, and in some cases success, of 
> >> alternative OA approaches.
> >> 
> >> Charles
> >> ________________________________________
> >> From: Repositories discussion list
> >> [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad 
> >> [[log in to unmask]]
> >> Sent: 29 July 2010 21:50
> >> To: [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject: The Mandate of Open Access Institutional 
> Repository Managers
> >> 
> >> Hyperlinked version of this posting: 
> >> http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/752-guid.html
> >> 
> >> Cross-Posted
> >> 
> >> SUMMARY: Open Access (OA) Institutional Repository (IR) 
> managers need 
> >> to remind themselves that their mandate is to see to it that their 
> >> IRs are filled with OA's target content (peer-reviewed research 
> >> journal articles) so as to maximize the accessibility, visibility, 
> >> usage and impact of their institution's research output. Their 
> >> mandate is not to seek or provide alternative "business 
> models" for 
> >> journal publishing.
> >> 
> >> In a UKSG Serials News posting
> >> http://www.ringgold.com/UKSG/si_pd.cfm?AC=3650&Pid=10&Zid=5538
> >> &issueno=225 -- "Are we nearly there yet? On the road to 
> open access" 
> >> -- Graham Stone [GS], Repository Manager, University of 
> Huddersfield 
> >> and Chair, UK Council of Research Repositories (UKCoRR) wrote:
> >> 
> >>> GS: "Not too long ago, I took a phone call from an academic
> >> colleague from the Health Sciences regarding the submission of an 
> >> article to Biomed Central. [The colleague] phoned me as I am the 
> >> 'Repository guy' and [the colleague was] learning to play the 
> >> 'Repository game', that is getting their work out there on open 
> >> access and increasing their citations. [The colleague was] very 
> >> impressed that so many people downloaded their last paper 
> within days 
> >> of it appearing in the Repository."
> >> 
> >> This upbeat-sounding paragraph is unfortunately a series of
> >> (familiar) misunderstandings and non-sequiturs about Open 
> Access (OA) 
> >> and Institutional Repositories (IRs):
> >> 
> >> (1) Biomed Central (BMC) is a gold OA (pay-to-publish) journal 
> >> publisher.
> >> 
> >> (2) Publishing in a BMC journal has nothing to do with 
> depositing an 
> >> article in "the Repository."
> >> 
> >> Which Repository -- Huddersfield's? You don't need to publish in a 
> >> pay-to-publish gold OA journal in order to deposit in a green OA 
> >> Institutional Repository (IR) like Huddersfield's, nor in order to 
> >> benefit from the increased downloads and citations that OA makes 
> >> possible. All you do is publish in whatever journal you 
> publish in, 
> >> and deposit the final refereed draft in your OA IR as soon 
> as it is 
> >> accepted for publication.
> >> 
> >> Or was the deposit in PubMed Central (PMC, not BMC)? Likewise no 
> >> payment required (but what does deposit in that 
> institution-external 
> >> repository have to do with U.
> >> Huddersfield's IR, or its IR manager?).
> >> 
> >> (3) There is no "Repository game". There is just the research and 
> >> publication game.
> >> 
> >> (Providing OA maximizes research access, usage and impact, 
> and OA can 
> >> be provided in two ways. I. "Gold OA": by publishing in an 
> OA journal 
> >> (of which the major ones require payment to publish); or 
> II. "Green 
> >> OA": by publishing in any journal at all -- whether 
> >> subscription-based or OA -- and also depositing the final draft in 
> >> your OA IR: no payment required. The "game" is merely 
> ensuring that 
> >> all potential users have online access to your published articles, 
> >> not just those whose institutions can afford to subscribe to the 
> >> journal in which it happened to be published.)
> >> 
> >>> GS: "It struck me as very interesting that to [this
> >> colleague], the next stage of the 'game' was to consider switching 
> >> from green to gold open access - providing someone would pay of 
> >> course!"
> >> 
> >> The colleague sounds like a researcher who has just deposited an 
> >> article for the first time in an OA repository (perhaps 
> PMC, though 
> >> it should have been Huddersfield's IR), and not a 
> researcher who has 
> >> just paid BMC for gold OA publication (otherwise the 
> colleague would 
> >> know who was paying!).
> >> 
> >> Something has definitely been garbled here...
> >> 
> >>> GS: "This is not the first time that this topic has come up
> >> in conversation in the past few weeks. At the recent LIBER 
> conference 
> >> at Aarhus University in Denmark discussion over dinner 
> turned to open 
> >> access. One comment from a colleague was that green open 
> access could 
> >> not be successful in the long run as this was a compromise, and 
> >> 'compromises never work'."
> >> 
> >> How is providing OA to one's published article by depositing it in 
> >> one's IR a "compromise"?
> >> 
> >> A compromise of what, with what, for whom?
> >> 
> >> Depositing an article in an IR consists of a few minutes' 
> >> worth of keystrokes that maximize the access, usage and impact of 
> >> one's article.
> >> 
> >> But perhaps the LIBER discussion was not among (1) researchers, 
> >> discussing the problem of how to "get their work out there on open 
> >> access and increase their citations" rather than continue to allow 
> >> access to it to be restricted only to those researchers whose 
> >> institutions can afford to pay for subscription access to 
> the journal 
> >> in which it happens to be published...
> >> 
> >> Perhaps the LIBER discussion was instead among (2) librarians, 
> >> discussing the problem of how to afford to pay for subscription 
> >> access?
> >> 
> >> Or perhaps the LIBER discussion was among (3) publishers, 
> discussing 
> >> the problem of how to guarantee current subscription 
> revenue streams 
> >> in a growing climate of demand for open access on the part of 
> >> researchers, their institutions, their funders, and the tax-paying 
> >> public that funds the research?
> >> 
> >> To repeat: In what sense is green OA self-archiving a "compromise"?
> >> 
> >> A compromise of what, with what, for whom?
> >> 
> >> Is a university repository manager a representative of the 
> immediate 
> >> interests of the university's researchers (and their institutions, 
> >> funders, and the tax-paying public that funds the research), or of 
> >> the interests of publishers and their present and future business 
> >> models?
> >> 
> >> If librarians are to fulfill the role of repository managers, they 
> >> need to re-think what they are doing, and why, and what it is that 
> >> researchers and research need in the OA era.
> >> 
> >> An OA IR is not a buy-in collection of journal subscriptions: 
> >> It is a give-away provision of access to an institution's 
> published 
> >> journal articles.
> >> 
> >> An OA IR manager is not a serials librarian, nor someone 
> appointed to 
> >> direct or second-guess the future course of serials publishing.
> >> 
> >> An OA IR manager is someone appointed to make sure the 
> university's 
> >> OA IR is filled with its primary target content:
> >> the university's published journal article output.
> >> 
> >> "UKCoRR has a vision of the work of repository management as a 
> >> professionally recognised and supported role within UK research 
> >> institutions." -- What is that "professionally recognised and 
> >> supported role" if it is not filling their institution's 
> repository 
> >> with its intended content?
> >> 
> >>> GS: "The road to open access is covered in gold and this is
> >> the way forward."
> >> 
> >> The way forward for whom? And according to whom? And in 
> the interests 
> >> of what?
> >> 
> >> Researchers can be mandated to provide green OA for their 
> published 
> >> work. (Without mandates, only about 20% or articles are 
> >> self-archived.)
> >> 
> >> And funds -- if any are available -- can be provided to 
> pay for gold 
> >> OA.
> >> 
> >> But publishers cannot be mandated to provide gold OA.
> >> 
> >> And the funds to pay for gold OA cannot be mandated while they are 
> >> still tied up in paying for subscriptions (and while the 
> asking price 
> >> for gold OA is designed to preserve publishers' current revenue 
> >> streams and modus operandi, come what may).
> >> 
> >> The road to green OA is wide open, and traversing it is 
> entirely in 
> >> the hands of researchers (and their institutions and funders).
> >> 
> >> The road to gold OA is not wide open; it costs money, and it is in 
> >> the hands of publishers, not researchers. And the 
> potential money to 
> >> pay for gold OA is currently tied up in institutions' subscription 
> >> fees, which are being paid to publishers, by institutions' 
> libraries.
> >> 
> >> So how is the road to OA covered with gold, and how is it the way 
> >> forward?
> >> 
> >> And what has this to do with the research repository manager's 
> >> "professionally recognised and supported role within UK research 
> >> institutions"?
> >> 
> >>> GS: "A few days earlier, Kurt de Belder from Leiden
> >> University in the Netherlands had laid out his vision of 
> the future, 
> >> which assumed that open access would be via the gold route and if 
> >> Repositories existed, they would only contain grey literature."
> >> 
> >> Kurt de Melder is the director of Leiden University's 
> library (and an 
> >> advisor to several publishers). Does his golden vision (like the 
> >> green vision) include a practical means (like the green vision's 
> >> mandates) of getting us from here to there? Or is it all just a 
> >> golden wish, waiting passively (apart from any spare money being 
> >> spent on pre-emptive gold OA payments) for publishers to 
> convert to 
> >> gold and release everyone's subscription money (for incoming 
> >> journals) to pay their asking price for gold OA (for outgoing 
> >> articles)?
> >> 
> >> And while the institution's library keeps waiting for this 
> to happen 
> >> directly, of its own accord, is the access, usage and 
> impact of the 
> >> institution's research output to continue to be denied to all but 
> >> subscribing institutions, as it is today, while institutions' IRs 
> >> (which already exist, by the way) are devoted instead to "grey 
> >> literature" (whatever that means) instead of to refereed research 
> >> (green OA)?
> >> 
> >> And meanwhile, visions aside, those who have their eyes wide open 
> >> cannot help but notice that IRs (which already do exist,
> >> remember) do contain green content (20%) rather than just grey 
> >> content, and that green deposit mandates can and do drive up the 
> >> percentage green from the baseline 20% to 60%, and 
> approaching 100% 
> >> within a few years.
> >> 
> >> What's missing, and needed (for those with eyes wide open to
> >> see) is more green OA mandates from institutions and funders
> >> -- not armchair or dinner-table visions of the future of 
> publishing, 
> >> evoked in the thrall of pre-emptive gold fever (with no critical 
> >> reflection on or answerability to practical means and ends).
> >> 
> >> That, perhaps (rather than gold fever), would come closer to a 
> >> substantive "vision of the work of repository management as a 
> >> professionally recognised and supported role within UK research 
> >> institutions."
> >> 
> >>> GS: "Personally, and not as Chair of UKCoRR (UK Council of
> >> Research Repositories), I must admit that I am starting to 
> agree with 
> >> the gold only route, although I'm not sure I should."
> >> 
> >> If the Chair of UK's Council of Research Repositories is 
> starting to 
> >> agree (whether personally or ex officio) with the gold-only route, 
> >> then perhaps it is time for the Chair to think of resigning, and 
> >> allowing UKCoRR's direction to be set by those who understand the 
> >> needs of research and researchers, the power of green OA 
> IRs, and the 
> >> urgent need for Green OA mandates.
> >> 
> >> Surely there is a "UK Council of Publishing Business Models" 
> >> that could be joined instead, by those who have become 
> afflicted with 
> >> gold fever, forgetting about research and researchers' urgent 
> >> immediate need for OA, and IRs' mission to provide it.
> >> 
> >>> GS: "I have been espousing the virtues of green open access
> >> for nearly five years. At Huddersfield we have 26% full 
> text in the 
> >> Repository despite not yet having a mandate and our full text 
> >> downloads are really taking off - 46,000 in the last 12 months."
> >> 
> >> If that 26% is 26% of Huddersfield's current yearly 
> research output, 
> >> then that deposit rate is somewhat above the global spontaneous 
> >> (i.e., unmandated) baseline deposit rate of about 20%, but it is a 
> >> far cry from what the deposit rate would be if 
> Huddersfield were to 
> >> adopt a mandate.
> >> 
> >> A repository manager espousing the interests of Huddersfield's 
> >> researchers should be espousing the virtues of green OA 
> mandates to 
> >> Huddersfield's researchers and administration, not just 
> the virtues 
> >> of providing green OA spontaneously (although that is, of course, 
> >> welcome too).
> >> 
> >> Well over five years' consistent experience (and surveys) 
> worldwide 
> >> have shown that most researchers will not deposit 
> spontaneously but 
> >> they will deposit (willingly) if deposit is mandated. In 
> the past few 
> >> years, it is not spontaneous deposit rates that have been 
> picking up, 
> >> but the rate of adoption of deposit mandates, and the 
> resulting green 
> >> OA.
> >> 
> >> This is not the time for repository managers to succumb to 
> gold fever 
> >> (which leads next to nowhere, and is not even part of 
> their remit), 
> >> resigning their IRs to warehousing "grey literature."
> >> 
> >>> GS: "However, for some time I have had my doubts as to
> >> whether the championing of green open access was actually 
> taking us 
> >> down the right road. I could see that gold open access was a good 
> >> business model. "
> >> 
> >> If we all commit to deposit, we don't need green OA self-archiving 
> >> mandates.
> >> 
> >> But we don't all commit to deposit, even though it costs nothing. 
> >> Only about 20% commit unmandated (26% at Huddersfield, perhaps 
> >> because the IR manager has for five years espoused the virtues of 
> >> spontaneous deposit so persuasively).
> >> 
> >> But even fewer commit to gold OA, because it costs money, because 
> >> most of the top journals don't offer it, and because the 
> money to pay 
> >> for it is still tied up in paying for subscriptions.
> >> 
> >> And there are no mandates to require researchers to pay 
> for gold OA, 
> >> nor to release the subscription money, nor to dictate publishers' 
> >> business model or modus operandi, nor to set their asking price.
> >> 
> >> Besides, none of that is within an OA IR manager's remit. It has 
> >> nothing to do with "the work of repository management as a 
> >> professionally recognised and supported role within UK research 
> >> institutions."
> >> 
> >> An OA IR manager is supposed to get his IR filled with OA's target 
> >> content, and that target content is supposed to be, first and 
> >> foremost, peer-reviewed journal articles, most of which are today 
> >> still being published in subscription journals.
> >> 
> >> What needs to be championed by IR managers (and a fortiori, by the 
> >> Chair of the UK Council of Research Repositories), and 
> championed for 
> >> their researchers and their institutions, are the virtues 
> of green OA 
> >> mandates that will fill their IRs -- not the virtues of "good 
> >> business models," championed for publishers, by librarians. (You 
> >> don't need to be a "professional and supported" IR manager 
> to go down 
> >> that road.)
> >> 
> >> And those who are indeed committed to championing green OA 
> mandates 
> >> worldwide are beginning to win them.
> >> 
> >>> GS: "The trouble to me is that the [gold OA] model only
> >> really works if we all commit. Otherwise, you end up paying twice, 
> >> once for the open access article and once for the journal 
> >> subscription. I just didn't see how we arrived at this brave new 
> >> world of gold open access journals, no serials budgets and 
> stuff in 
> >> the cloud."
> >> 
> >> Yes, that's indeed the size of it: "The [gold OA] model 
> only really 
> >> works if we all commit. Otherwise, you end up paying 
> twice, once for 
> >> the open access article and once for the journal subscription."
> >> 
> >> Trying to go directly from the status quo to gold OA is 
> quite simply 
> >> self-contradictory, like an Escher drawing of an impossible shape:
> >> 
> >> Institutional subscription access tolls are paid per incoming 
> >> journal; individual OA publication fees are paid per outgoing 
> >> article. The money to pay for gold OA fees is tied up in 
> subscription 
> >> tolls. But institutions cannot cancel their journal subscriptions 
> >> unless the journals' contents are accessible to their users 
> >> otherwise. Institutions are not necessarily even subscribing 
> >> annually, for their users, to the same journals in which their 
> >> researchers are occasionally publishing. Catch 22.
> >> 
> >> (And, as Graham notes, anyone foolish and gullible enough 
> to believe 
> >> hybrid gold publishers (the ones who charge both 
> subscription tolls + 
> >> optional gold OA fees) when they say they will reduce subscription 
> >> tolls proportionately as gold OA fee revenues increase is 
> forgetting 
> >> that this requires institutions to find the money to pay the gold 
> >> asking price first, while it is still being spent on the 
> >> subscriptions! A good "business model" indeed...)
> >> 
> >> (By the way, the somewhat uneven distribution of wealth on 
> the planet 
> >> can also be fixed "if we all commit." That's not just gold fever, 
> >> it's the Golden Rule -- but alas far too few in our gene pool are 
> >> committed to practising it...)
> >> 
> >>> GS: "But maybe I can see how we get to gold open access
> >> now? With researchers taking ownership of the 'game' by realising 
> >> that gold open access is the only way to ensure access for all and 
> >> increased citations, maybe we are on the right road after all?"
> >> 
> >> Researchers "taking ownership of the 'game'"? by "reaising 
> that gold 
> >> OA is the only way"?
> >> 
> >> The self-contradiction on the road to there from here is 
> resolved by 
> >> "realisation"? By researchers? (The same researchers for whom the 
> >> only thing they need to do to provide OA is a few keystrokes? And 
> >> they're not even "committed" enough to do those keystrokes, unless 
> >> they are first mandated by their institutions or funders?)
> >> 
> >> What does this vision envision that researchers are to do 
> with this 
> >> newfound golden realisation of theirs? The same thing 
> 34,000 of them 
> >> did (unsuccessfully) back in 2000? Sign a petition to 
> boycott their 
> >> journals if they don't go OA?
> >> 
> >> And if researchers were really that committed to "ensuring 
> access for 
> >> all and increased citations," wouldn't it be simpler than making 
> >> empty threats against all their publishers just to 
> petition their one 
> >> and only institution to mandate deposit?
> >> 
> >> Better still, if their realisation about "the only way" were that 
> >> profound, wouldn't researchers just go ahead and do the 
> keystrokes to 
> >> deposit of their own accord, unmandated, in order to 
> "ensure access 
> >> for all, and increased citations"?
> >> 
> >> And would it not be a remarkable coincidence it it turned out that 
> >> the most pressing thing on researchers' minds was not, in 
> fact, the 
> >> access and impact of their work (which they can already 
> maximize with 
> >> a few green keystrokes), but a "good business model" for their 
> >> publishers and their long-suffering librarians?
> >> 
> >> A remarkable coincidence that what researchers had been 
> yearning for 
> >> all along turned out (upon "realisation") to be exactly the same 
> >> thing their librarians had been yearning for
> >> -- which was not the filling of their OA IRs but relief from the 
> >> serials crisis?
> >> 
> >>> GS: "And maybe, instead of the superfast highway to gold
> >> open access that some envisage, are we travelling down the 
> leafy lane 
> >> of green open access with gold just around the next corner? A bit 
> >> round the houses, but yes we are certainly getting there."
> >> 
> >> The super-fast highway to gold OA? Amidst all this 
> "realisation," I 
> >> don't recall hearing the game plan for solving the problem of the 
> >> toll booths posted along the ubiquitous subscription 
> highways -- the 
> >> ones that are currently gobbling up institutions' serial budgets 
> >> (i.e., the funds that would be used instead to pay for gold OA)...
> >> 
> >> But it is true that green OA, once it becomes universal, may 
> >> eventually get us to gold OA too -- if universal availability of 
> >> green eventually causes universal cancellations, forcing 
> journals to 
> >> cut costs, downsize, and convert to gold OA, thereby releasing the 
> >> windfall subscription savings to pay the reduced cost of gold OA 
> >> (peer review alone, with the print and online editions 
> gone, and all 
> >> access-provision and archiving offloaded onto the 
> worldwide network 
> >> of OA IRs).
> >> 
> >> But that's not around the next corner, at 20% green OA.
> >> 
> >> And we are certainly getting ahead of ourselves, if we 
> don't provide 
> >> the universal green OA first -- for that's what any eventual 
> >> subscription cancellation windfall is dependent upon. The 
> >> cancellations can't be done pre-emptively.
> >> Certainly not by a single institution, or IR manager -- 
> not even the 
> >> Chair of the UK Council of Research Repositories.
> >> That would require universal institutional subscription 
> >> cancellations, and all at once (not one institution or 
> country at a 
> >> time -- otherwise the researchers of that institution or country, 
> >> instead of gaining open access, lose subscription access 
> altogether).
> >> 
> >> My recommendation to OA IR managers who envision "the work of 
> >> repository management as a professionally recognised and supported 
> >> role within UK research institutions" would be to focus on 
> their own 
> >> mandate, which is to fill their own institution's IRs, not 
> to dream 
> >> about business models that are as good as gold.
> >> 
> >> And the way to get their OA IRs filled is already known: It is by 
> >> getting their institutions to mandate green OA. (No one 
> connected in 
> >> any way with OA IRs has a more "professionally recognised and 
> >> supported role within [their] research institutions" then 
> >> Southampton's Les Carr and Harvard's Stuart Shieber, the 
> architects 
> >> of their respective institutions' green OA mandates (Southampton's 
> >> being the first and Harvard's the most famous). It's not 
> too late for 
> >> Huddersfield -- or Nottingham, or the rest of the 17,000 
> universities 
> >> that have not yet adopted a mandate.
> >> 
> >> That's all. And that's enough. Mandate green OA for your 
> institution 
> >> and rest will take care of itself, in its own time. But meanwhile 
> >> your institution's researchers will "ensure access for all, and 
> >> increased citations."
> >> 
> >> That, after all -- not "a good business model" -- is the 
> purpose of 
> >> OA, and hence the mandate of OA IR managers.
> >> 
> >> See "Waiting for Gold"
> >> (from the 2002 BOAI Self-Archiving FAQ).
> >> 
> >> Stevan Harnad
> >> American Scientist Open Access Forum
> >> 
>