[okfn-discuss] [Open-access] Ross Mounce (Panton Fellow) on BBC about Open Access

Wed Oct 3 07:27:18 UTC 2012

Thanks Mike,<http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01n1rth/Night_Waves_Anne_Applebaum/>
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01n1rth/Night_Waves_Anne_Applebaum/

start 06.30 -> 34.00 (The interface isn't great. There's nothing telling
you what is on the track. In the popout window you can slide to the start)

On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 8:09 AM, Ross Mounce <ross.mounce at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm afraid I didn't appear much in the programme.
>
> Dame Finch & David Willetts talked a lot of sense so I didn't want to
> interrupt them too much.
>
> I feel it got sidetracked into the relatively minor issues of humanities
> research publishing (which I believe is only a small component of the UK's
> total academic research output).
>
>
Ross - this is RADIO-3!!!

> I'd be interested in hearing more about humanities research and open
> access if anyone on these lists is involved in these areas. I got the
> impression from talking with some of those concerned afterwards that
> humanities academics are very drawn to *paper* copies of journals, and this
> thus increases the cost of publishing for them.
>

Yes - if you want to contunue with the ways of the past it costs more
money.

>
> Paper journals are irrelevant to me and my research - they are 20th
> century reminders of how research used to be distributed. All I need is
> research distributed via the internet to be read on computers, tablets,
> phones, and other devices and hence I feel the cost of publishing research
> need only be very small. I suspect the difference of opinion encountered
> was based around this.
>
>
And the disconnection of cost from value. This is something that perhaps we
should try to identify and formalize. Thus eveyrone can *read* physics in
the archive. It then "has to be" published in paper. Why? (a) to provide a
formal record - but a national library could do that for a fraction of the
costs and (b) to give a formal label/score of approval. That's the main
problem.

I thought you made your points clearly, strongly and persuasively for those
who wanted to listen.

> Best,
>
> Ross
>
>
> PS Since I didn't get to mention it on air: it's Open Access Week soon!
> 22-28 October: http://www.openaccessweek.org/    Help celebrate & raise
> awareness of OA!
>

Yes - but what actually is it? what are we meant to do? Last time I tried
to contribute and got essentially zero feedback. Is it just a PR exercise
for the mainstream OA community.

I do not get a feeling of Openness in the same way as I do for other Open
events.

>
>
-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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