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

Mon Nov 18 17:09:21 UTC 2013

Dear Bjoern, Eric and Heather,

I fully agree that it is good practice to duplicate deposits. Actually, there is nothing wrong with that.
And on these lines, I would recommend public repositories. I feel much less at ease with private ones.
We have had terrible experiences with commercial publishers who cut us from accessing contents we had already paid for. That really sobers you up when it happens and it cures you definitively from attempting to trust any private repository of any kind.

Duplication is OK. It increases your chances of being read (which, after all, is the only point here). The thing is that you must make sure that all your Institution's production is complete somewhere, so the best possible place is in your Institutional Repository.

Mandates are very useful to fill up IRs but it takes firm control at the start. After some time, the urge to store their production there is a good incentive enough for researchers and it tends to become a habit (I am am talking here about a mere 5-year experience!).

IRs are much less exposed to politics than Government-run ones. Of course, I live in a country where Government is not excessively intrusive in University policies. However, I agree that one should not rest on a single storage silo.

> Le 18 nov. 2013 à 17:30, Bjoern Brembs <b.brembs at gmail.com> a écrit :
> 
> Dear Eric,
> 
> I am so completely and utterly on your page. This is precisely the way we need to go and every library meeting I speak at confirms this view: everyone I meet there gives me the feedback that they're ready to go for it.
> 
> Thanks for making this important point!
> 
> Bjoern
> 
> 
> 
>> On Monday, November 18, 2013, 5:17:37 PM, you wrote:
>> 
>> 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
> 
> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Björn Brembs
> ---------------------------------------------
> http://brembs.net
> Neurogenetics
> Universität Regensburg
> Germany
> 