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

Thu Oct 4 10:11:01 UTC 2012

On 3 October 2012 08:27, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> 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 wonder if there aren't any further .. emotional (or sentimental, if you
will) reasons for this attitude we ascribe to Humanities researchers. What
if they just like reading from a paper and feel that their research has a
special connection to that medium?

> 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.
>
>>
>> Looks like Document Freedom Day or similar things. As in, it's not an
*event*, it's whatever the community makes it. (And "the community" =
whoever knows about this week and has the knowledge and inclination to
create an event in their environment.)

Greetings,
Emanuil
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