Let's reclaim our own work

From Peter Suber’s blog: Are OA repositories adequate for long-term preservation?

Peter B. Hirtle, Copyright Keeps Open Archives and Digital Preservation Separate, RLG DigiNews, April 15, 2007.  Sadly, this is the last installment of the FAQ column in the final issue of DigiNews.  Excerpt: 

I have read that if I publish with a “green” publisher or use one of the author’s addenda, my articles can be preserved in an open access digital repository. Is this true?
The short answer: probably not….
[…]
Open access archives can be a valuable tool in making information immediately available. With time, the license terms that permit self-archiving may mature to explicitly permit digital preservation of the files as well as third party use of the archived material (the other great lacuna in the current agreements).  For now, however, libraries will need to rely on the published journal literature for the long-term preservation of scholarly information. And, as library directors concluded in our recent report, E-Journal Archiving Metes and Bounds: A Survey of the Landscape, only journals that are part of formal third party journal archiving programs can be said to be effectively preserved. In sum, libraries cannot yet rely upon open archives for long-term access to the journal literature

This is so depressing. Most scholars would like their work to be read (OK, some are only interested in it being cited, but…). Here we are being told: “A scholar writes something, publishes it on their website, in their repository, etc. but they do not own their own work. The publisher has control over the long-term future”. Presumably the publisher could decide to close the back issues – destroy the archive – sell it to Disney – whatever.
I am a chemist/informatician. I am not a specialist in Open Access, copyright law, etc. I want a simple equation.

  • do some scholarly work/research
  • tell the world about it
  • get feedback – praise or criticism or apathy

I want to concentrate on science/technology – quantum mechanics, crystal structures, etc. When I started as a chemist that’s how it worked.
Now we are actively fighting our publishers. They hinder our ability to work-publish-feedback.
PeterS has blogged Stevan Harnad:
More on green OA without paying for gold OA

 
Stevan Harnad, OA or More-Pay? Open Access Archivangelism, April 18, 2007.  

Summary:  Springer Open Choice offers authors the choice of paying for Optional Gold OA: While all publication costs are still being paid for by institutional subscriptions, authors can pay Springer $3000 extra to make their article (Gold) OA for them.
   But there is no need (nor sense) to pay anyone an extra penny while institutional subscriptions are still paying all publication costs. Researchers’ institutions and funders should instead mandate that their researchers self-archive their published articles in their own Institutional Repositories in order to make them (Green) OA.
   Mandating deposit in an Institutional Repository is a university and funder policy matter in which the publishing industry should have no say whatsoever. The way to remove the publishing industry lobby from this research-community decision loop is the pro-tem compromise — wherever there is any delay in adopting an OA self-archiving mandate — of weakening the mandate into an immediate-deposit/optional-access mandate (ID/OA), so that it can be adopted without any further delay.
   (Such ID/OA mandates can be accompanied by a cap on the maximum allowable length for any publisher embargo on the setting of access to the (immediate) deposit as OA: 3 months, 6 months, 12 months: whatever can be agreed on without delaying the adoption of the ID/OA mandate itself. The most important thing to note is that most of the current, sub-optimal Green OA mandates that have already been adopted or proposed — the ones that mandate deposit itself only after a capped embargo period [or worse: only if/when the publishers “allows it”] instead of immediately — are all really subsumed as special cases by the ID/OA mandate. The only difference is that the deposit itself must be immediate in all cases, with the allowable delay pertaining only to the date of the OA-setting.) …

This is pretty clear. The author wants to publish their work. The publisher tells them that only a small proportion of the scientific world will be able to read it. And theat the publisher will make sure this is enforced. If they want more people to read it they have to pay more.
I was visiting Jimmy Stewart – a Blue Obelisk member – today in Colorado Springs. Jimmy has written an excellent program, MOPAC, which predicts molecular properties. He wants to write it up – and he (and I) are on the board of the Journal of Molecular Modeling so he looked to send it there. He wanted it to be open so that everyone could read it and the essential data files that define the essence of the program.  These need to be preserved for all time. He looked at the Springer Open and was struck silent by the price…
It is quite clear that the academic community is supine. I compare them to the rabbits in Watership down – the farmers fed them carrots and then culled them for the pot. I am increasingly appalled by the lack of concern about Openness and it makes me angry.
The only answer is to take back our own work. It is pointless negotiating these complex agreements. Every publisher has byzantine legal agreements. “You can let people see your work as long as you don’t put it in this place, don’t publicise i, take it down after x years..” 
We own it.
And, quite simply, it’s a disgrace that scientists cannot make their work available to the whole of the world.
Let’s declare 2008 “world non-transfer-of-copyright year”. That gives us time to coordinate the mass action.
We could do it if we wanted, couldn’t we?

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