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

[Peter Murray-Rust]

On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 12:49 PM, Björn Brembs <b.brembs at googlemail.com>wrote:

> 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,


These may be facts, but that does not justify them per se. Most senior
chemists are white males.

On 8. the lack of access is self-fulfilling. As a result of working with
Ross Mounce I am now looking at phylogenetic trees. I am certain that
anyone with an interest in biology/environment - e.g. naturalists,
planners, high-school students, etc. - would be capable of understanding
these.

Maybe we should start posting Open papers as examples that "anyone" can
understand. I think phylogenetics would be a good place to start as I am
sure there are huge numbers of people that can understand and many would be
interested.

P.


-- 
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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