[Open-access] Harnad's view of the Scholarly Poor

Sat Apr 28 11:49:19 UTC 2012

Peter Murray-Rust wrote:

> 7. Most research is technical, intended to be
> used and applied by peer
> researchers in building further research and applications -- to the
> benefit of the general public.

> 8. But most peer-reviewed research reports themselves are neither
> understandable nor of direct interest to the
> general public as reading
> matter.

> 9. Hence, for most research, "public access to publicly funded
> research," is not reason enough for providing OA, nor for mandating
> that OA be provided.

Now, if you run the statistics, 7 and 8 can
probably be verified, but how 9 follows from that
I can't understand. Any patient group, for
instance, is a minority and therefore aren't
enough reason to receive access to the research
concerning their illness?
That makes absolutely no sense at all. Moreover,
compared with the sum of all and every such
interest groups (of which each is likely a
minority), the number of researchers likely pales.
So if anything, 'peer access' is the politically
much weaker argument.

<headshake>

Bjoern

-- 
Björn Brembs
---------------------------------------------
http://brembs.net
Neurobiology
Freie Universität Berlin
Germany