I am now gobsmacked. Earlier I have recounted (OUP wants me to pay for my own Open Access article) how I was expected to pay for access to my [*] own Open Access paper both through the actual publisher and an aggregator. (These organizations have admitted that this was inappropariate and are changing their technology to support free Open Access as opposed to charging for it). However, arising from concerns about access to out-of-copyright material through the British Library, I raised this here and Peter Suber commented (More access barriers at the BL document delivery service) that the British Library charge for Open Access material.
PS Comment. See the BL response when the PLoS Director of Publishing, Mark Patterson, asked why the BL was charging for copies of PLoS articles, which are all OA. At first I thought the BL was saying, in effect, that it doesn’t have the resources to see whether an article is under an open license (or in the public domain). But it’s more complicated than that, and the more I re-read it, the less I understand it. In the case of PLoS articles, the BL charges a copyright fee set by UKCLA and passes the fee on to UKCLA, keeping nothing for itself. But it doesn’t explain why UKCLA believes that PLoS articles should carry copyright fees
PMR: If Peter Suber can’t understand it, then no-one can. So any futire answer will have to be in simpler language
Well, perhaps that was a mistake and the have put it right. So I thought I would see what they have done with my article. This is told in pictures. I search for electronic journals and find:
“Most of the collections are only available from the St. Pancras Reading Rooms, owing to licensing restrictions, and cannot be accessed offsite. Some collections are freely available on the World Wide Web.”
What on earth is happening here? To view an electronic journal you have to visit the British Library in London? I am lost for words… how can this be part of the UK’s effort in eScience where we have developed tools that can access knowledge across the world’s continents. Perhaps it’s an error, so I search for the OUP issue and find:
So if I want to use an electronic journal I have to travel to the British Library at St Pancras??
Maybe they have another service…
Yes: British Library Direct – search and order journal articles online
and here is my paper:
They are both Open Access. I go for the first which is an Open Access Journal , i.e. all articles are OA so any software swicth can simply be put on the journal. I find:
So I have to pay 20.65 GBP (*1.175 for VAT) => 24 GBP. We have paid the publisher to make this article freely available to the whole world. This is so they do not have to ask permission, do not have to pay, can re-use the material for any non-commercial purpose, etc. So firstly the British Library appears to be breaking the terms of our licence – they are charging for something we authors have paid for to be free.
I am going to write to the BL to ask what is going on. And if I don’t get an answer I can understand I’ll take it to a knowledgeable Member of Parliament. There is a lot of interest in Open Access to funded information among some politicians.
In simple terms this is destroying eScience. eScience is only possible with zero-barrier to access. ZERO. This is worse than the cases I have had before because this is the National Library in the UK. I have, on occasions, parised the BL. But here it is saying that it is more important to put barriers in place than to enable freedom of access.
This culture permeates the library community in Britain. They are terrified of breaking copyright. Even when there isn’t any. I can’t get Open theses because they can’t reach (dead) copyright holders. I can’t get papers written pre 1900 because we can’t get definitive copyright clearance.
I know the BL is a government-funded institution and can’t break laws, but it really should be pushing for the cobwebs to be swept away, not locking the door and letting more grow.
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[*] This is a multi-author paper but I am using the singular as I have not discussed this issue with the other authors.