On Sat, 11 Jan 2003, Jim Till wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Jan 2003, Stevan Harnad wrote [in part]:
>
> > It is no longer possible to close that door. For where journal
> > publishers explicitly refuse to allow self-archiving, thereby
> > broadcacting that they do not share their authors' goal of maximizing
> > their research impact, the preprint-plus-corrigenda strategy --
> > http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#publisher-forbids -- is still available
> > to all authors for attaining almost exactly the same end -- while
> > implicitly naming-and-shaming, each time that strategy needs to be used,
> > those publishers who thereby advertise that for them maximizing their
> > potential revenue streams is more important than maximizing the
> > potential impact of the research they publish.
>
> Stevan, this point seems to me to be quite an important one, in relation
> to the evaluation of 'best practices' designed to promote open access to
> the peer-reviewed research literature, and thus to bring us measurably
> closer to the tipping point. It would be very helpful, I think, if you
> could provide some real-life examples of cases where the
> preprint-plus-corrigenda strategy has already been used to implicitly
> name-and-shame a major publisher. Do you have a favorite example?
Jim, it's more subtle -- and I'm not sure whether I should say simpler or
more complex -- than that. The preprint-plus-corrigenda strategy is a
"virtual strategy" (more like a thought-experiment or a reductio ad
absudrdum). I have no idea how many people are actually doing it (you'd
have to search OAIster to see), but it's main function is to reassure
researchers conceptually that self-archiving is still possible even if
they elect to ask their publishers, and even if their publishers say no.
The fact, however, is that for 12 years physicists (and mathematicians,
and computer scientists) have already been self-archiving without
bothering to ask! The P+C strategy is just intended for those who have
not yet begun self-archiving because they believed there was something
about copyright to prevent them from doing it.
And I meant the "name-and-shame" strategy in the same sense: Not to
actually do it and shame publishers, but in order to give them a graphic
picture of what it would look like if publishers forced authors to use
P+C.
Cheers, Stevan
Received on Sun Jan 12 2003 - 13:38:28 GMT