Re: Garfield: "Acknowledged Self-Archiving is Not Prior Publication"

From: David Goodman <dgoodman_at_PHOENIX.PRINCETON.EDU>
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 10:19:59 -0400

The recognition that Jan correctly specifies to be a principal purpose of
scholarly communication need not depend on labeling, let alone upon
"journals" even "as a concept."
One primarily wants recognition from one's fellow scholars, who judge the
work by its quality. The communication of this recognition
to academic administrators can be done by other devices than labeling;
among the already-existing devices are the system of confidential
letters of recommendation, and the judgment of the departmental
committee knowledgeable in the subject. (I do acknowledge that they have
limitations; so does labeling by journal.)

Another purpose of scholarly communication which should not be
overlooked is the exchange and diffusion
of knowledge.

On Thu, 5 Sep 2002,
Jan Velterop wrote:

> This only serves to show that 'publishing' and 'publication' (and probably
> also 'communication') are leftovers from the past and in this day and age
> quite probably the wrong notions in this debate. The notion at issue is
> recognition and career advancement by means of the acquisition of
> 'brownie-points' (or even 'bragging-points' for those who have 'arrived')
> via the attachment of a (quality, relevance) 'label' to the article in
> question, usually the title of a (respected) journal. Copyright is
> irrelevant and even moral rights (the latter not recognised in Anglo-Saxon
> legal systems, I gather) are of marginal importance.
>
> In the past, publication and labelling were part of the same process -- they
> rarely occurred separately -- but the internet has fundamentally changed
> that, of course. Unfortunately the term 'publishing' has remained.
> Understanding that it isn't really 'publishing' is important if new economic
> models for the activity of 'labelling' are to have any chance at all. For
> the 'labelling' we still need something like journals (as a concept); for
> publishing (dissemination) we don't.
>
> The economic model BioMed Central employs is to charge (if at all possible
> the author's institution) only for the organisational efforts of creating,
> maintaining, and attaching 'labels' (journal titles) to the article and
> those of assisting with efficient maximum dissemination and embedding in the
> network of scholarly literature. This model naturally results in open
> access. No money comes from the recipient of the peer-reviewed research
> articles, the reader. The conventional revenue models (reader pays) are the
> main cause of the difficulty, as publishers need to defend this revenue
> which is, or at least may be, threatened by prior or uncontrolled
> dissemination (even without 'label'), and they rely on copyright to do it.
>
> Jan Velterop
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Stevan Harnad [mailto:harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk]
> > Sent: 02 September 2002 16:28
> > To: Joseph Pietro Riolo
> > Cc: Multiple recipients of list; Digital Copyright;
> > american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org; Gene Garfield ISI
> > Subject: Re: Garfield: "Acknowledged Self-Archiving is Not
> > Prior Publication"
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 2 Sep 2002, Joseph Pietro Riolo wrote:
> >
> > > On Sat, 31 Aug 2002, Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > These two papers by Eugene Garfield -- founder of the
> > Institute for
> > > > Scientific Information, Current Contents, Science Citation Index,
> > > > and originator of the Citation Impact Factor -- might be
> > of interest to
> > > > the Open Access community:
> > > >
> > > > "I believe that posting and sharing one's preliminary
> > publications
> > > > [is] an important part of the peer... review process and does
> > > > not justify an embargo by publishers on the grounds of 'prior
> > > > publication'. It was not the case before the
> > Internet, and except
> > > > for unusual clinical situations, has not changed
> > because of the
> > > > convenience of the Internet." (Garfield, 2000)
> > >
> > http://www.the-scientist.library.upenn.edu/yr1999/June/comm_99
> > 0607.html
> > >
> > > Apparently, both Stevan Harnad and Eugene Garfield are ignorant of
> > > the definition of "publication" in the U.S. Copyright Law:
> > >
> > > "Publication" is the distribution of copies or
> > > phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other
> > > transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.
> > > The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a
> > > group of persons for purposes of further distribution,
> > > public performance, or public display, constitutes
> > > publication. A public performance or display of a work
> > > does not of itself constitute publication.
> > >
> > > (Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 101.)
> > >
> > > Before Internet, submitting an article to a review committee is
> > > not considered as a publication because the author does not intend
> > > for the public to see the article and does not allow the committee
> > > to further distribute copies. However, when an author puts his
> > > article on Internet without any control over who can see his article
> > > and distribute copies of his article, his article is considered as
> > > a publication.
> >
> > This is a red herring, conflating researchers' criteria for
> > what counts as a formal publication with trade criteria for
> > protecting toll-revenues.
> >
> > First (but irrelevantly) there are glaring logical incoherences in
> > the above definition of "publication" in U.S. Copyright Law when it
> > comes to online digital works. I will not bother pointing out all the
> > counterexamples and non-fitting cases that this quoted definition
> > obviously cannot handle, because there is a far more pertinent reason
> > why all of this is irrelevant to the literature that Gene Garfield and
> > I are talking about here -- refereed research publications.
> >
> > When it comes to the definition of "publication" in the only
> > sense that
> > is relevant to the authors of this special literature -- "publishing"
> > as in "publish or perish" -- no promotion committee or grant-funding
> > panel will count vanity-press self-publication as "publication,"
> > regardless of whether the author has self-published one copy
> > on a piece
> > of paper shown to one colleague or has spammed the entire
> > internet with
> > it: Self-publication is not publication insofar as
> > researchers' careers
> > and reward systems are concerned (with one prominent
> > exception, namely,
> > the establishment of priority as to who actually made a finding first
> > -- but for that, even one copy whose date of creation can be
> > objectively
> > authenticated is enough).
> > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#1.4
> >
> > The reason is simple: Far, far too much research is done, and
> > it varies
> > far too wildly in quality, for researchers to be able to
> > trust unfiltered
> > self-reports, or to evaluate it all for themselves in each
> > instance, in
> > deciding what to read, believe, use. To count as publications in
> > academia's formal publish-or-perish sense -- the only sense that
> > matters for research -- research-reports have to successfully pass the
> > self-corrective "filter" of peer-review, and be duly certified by the
> > publisher's imprimatur as having done so, through being accepted for
> > publication (sic) by a peer-reviewed journal (preferably an
> > established
> > one of known quality standards).
> >
> > Until they have done so, all papers are just unrefereed, unpublished
> > preprints (and, if cited in a published work, must be clearly
> > identified
> > as such), whether they have been seen only by one pair of eyes or have
> > been advertised far and wide in infomercials on international TV.
> > http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/guide.htm#preprint
> >
> > THIS is the sense of publication that Gene is talking about and this
> > should already have been obvious from the fact that he uses the word
> > "publication" in both senses in the very same sentence above, in
> > answering (in the negative) his own question, namely, "Is Acknowledged
> > Self-Archiving Prior Publication?" And he is addressing this question
> > to fellow-researchers -- authors, referees, and editors --
> > not to drafters
> > of copyright law.
> >
> > WHY was this question not addressing copyright law or copyright
> > lawyers? Because, if you will look carefully at every one of
> > the criteria
> > invoked in the legal "definition" of publication above --
> > "sale, transfer
> > of ownership, rental, lease, lending" -- every single one of them is
> > utterly irrelevant to the special, anomalous literature which
> > is the only
> > one of which we are speaking here. For refereed research
> > publications are
> > all author give-aways: Their authors do not seek to sell, rent, lease,
> > lend or otherwise transfer their ownership. Their "moral ownership" --
> > i.e., the fact that it is they who wrote them and not someone else --
> > is of course retained by these special authors, as by all authors. But
> > the texts themselves are all given away; not a penny of royalties or
> > fees or other form of income from their sale/rental/lease/lending is
> > received or sought by their authors.
> > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#5
> >
> > Hence these authors, and the users of this special literature (namely,
> > other researchers, their institutions, and their research-funding
> > agencies) have no interest whatsoever in copyright "protection" for
> > sale/rental/lease/lending. Apart from copyright protection of their
> > authorship -- which they can already assert on the one copy
> > they submit
> > to be considered for publication (sic) by a refereed journal -- these
> > authors are not in need of copyright law's elaborate measures to
> > toll-gate access to copies of their work. And that includes
> > any definition
> > of "publication" that is formulated in the service of protecting the
> > toll-gating itself -- as it is for the much larger corpus of
> > non-give-away
> > literature, for which copyright law was formulated, and to which it
> > is applicable.
> >
> > So let the tradesmen concern themselves with how to define
> > "publication"
> > in order to protect their toll-revenues, but let the
> > give-away researchers
> > define "publication" in terms of what it really means in their
> > peer-reviewed, publish/perish world -- the only world to which Gene's
> > recommendations about the self-archiving of unrefereed, unpublished
> > research was addressed.
> >
> > Stevan Harnad
> >
> > NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open
> > access to the peer-reviewed research literature online is available at
> > the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01):
> >
> > http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
> > or
> > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html
> >
> > Discussion can be posted to: american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org
> >
> > See also the Budapest Open Access Initiative:
> > http://www.soros.org/openaccess
> >
> > and the Free Online Scholarship Movement:
> > http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/timeline.htm

David Goodman
Research Librarian and
Biological Sciences Bibliographer
Princeton University Library
dgoodman_at_princeton.edu 609-258-7785
Received on Thu Sep 05 2002 - 15:19:59 BST

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