[Open-access] [GOAL] Re: Fight Publishing Lobby's Latest "FIRST" Act to Delay OA - Nth Successor to PRISM, RWA etc.

Mon Nov 18 16:17:37 UTC 2013

Stevan, Bernard:
My main concern is not with mandates, but with the repositories themselves.
If memory serves me right, there was at least one unsuccessful attempt to
defund the NIH-run Pubmed repository. ArXiv also had an existential crisis
when run from a government lab.

The weakness of government-run repositories is that those who want to
undermine these repositories have to be successful only once. Those who
support these OA repositories must fend off every attack.

To immunize against this, we need a distributed approach with sufficient
duplication to form an archive that is immune from any one particular
weakness. This is what libraries have always done, and should continue to
do.

Libraries have no role (except as advocates) in enacting and enforcing
mandates, but they can be useful in implementing the mandates effectively
by managing the distributed archive.

In fact, Stevan has made the same arguments against central repositories in
the past. So, I think we are all on the same wave length here up to this
point.

Where I go one step further, is in making the argument that libraries need
to get out of the digital-lending business altogether and dedicate their
efforts to the maintenance and development of the archive. See:
Where the Puck won't be
http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com/2013/10/where-puck-wont-be.html
and
Annealing the Library
http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com/2012/04/annealing-library.html

--Eric.

http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com
Twitter: @evdvelde
E-mail: eric.f.vandevelde at gmail.com

On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 9:52 PM, <brentier at ulg.ac.be> wrote:

> Libraries are definitely places where awareness occurs. They are the
> sentinels. However, they don't have enough power (generally) to impose Open
> Access as a permanent reflex with researchers.
> The only way researchers can be convinced is through mandatory pressure
> from the funders and/or the Academic authorities. And the only way mandates
> can be imposed is through the research assessment procedures. Everything
> else lingers or fails.
> (82% compliance with incitative mandates instead of 8% on average with
> 'soft' mandates).
> If the pressure is applied through Green OA mandates, academic freedom is
> fully respected. All it takes is 5 minutes (max) extra work for each new
> publication (usually not a daily task).
> Considering the benefits for the author(s), the mandate soon becomes
> accessory.
>
> > Le 17 nov. 2013 à 23:11, Bjoern Brembs <b.brembs at gmail.com> a écrit :
> >
> >> On Friday, November 15, 2013, 1:09:13 AM, you wrote:
> >>
> >> The political approach may be necessary to get OA
> >> enacted, but we need to implement OA in such a way that it
> >> is immune from political influence. In my book, that seems
> >> to be a perfect role for libraries.
> >
> > This is a serious problem with mandates: they are liable to political
> influence - and billions in $$$ pay for plenty of political influence, way
> more than we can ever dream of having.
> >
> > I thus support Eric's motion: we need to move everything in-house, away
> from any political influence. Libraries are the natural place for that.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> >
> > Bjoern
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Björn Brembs
> > ---------------------------------------------
> > http://brembs.net
> > Neurogenetics
> > Universität Regensburg
> > Germany
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > GOAL mailing list
> > GOAL at eprints.org
> > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
>
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