Salo: libraries have a lot of market power that we are not using properly…

Interview with Dorothea Salo John Dupuis, Interview with Dorothea Salo of Caveat Lector, Confessions of a Science Librarian, October 5, 2008.  Excerpt:

...Dorothea Salo [is the] Digital Repository Librarian at University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the blog Caveat Lector. Dorothea is well known for her role in the institutional repository and scholarly communications communities; she’s the author of the widely read eprint on IRs “Innkeeper at the Roach Motel,” forthcoming in the Fall 2008 Library Trends….

Q1. …[W]hat do you think about “libraries’ feasible and proper roles in scholarly communication?”

I think a lot of things. I think the institutional repository was a noble and worthwhile experiment, but as a tool for redressing the imbalances in the scholarly-communication system, it is a failure. It may be reborn if the Harvard experiment succeeds, but that very much remains to be seen. This doesn’t mean that I think IRs are useless; they don’t have to be, though they often are. It does mean that we’re going to have to go after the serials crisis in other ways.

I think we libraries have a lot of market power that we are not using properly. I’ve heard publishers talk about their industry, and what they invariably say is “we will follow the money.” That means libraries; as individual subscriptions dwindle, WE are the ones with the money. They’ll follow us — but we aren’t leading them toward open access. We’re squealing like stuck pigs about the stalemate, yes, but we’re not reallocating any of our serials funds to support gold open access. I think this is a serious mistake….

Read the entire post at:  http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/10/interview-with-dorothea-salo.html

Impact of Open Access Publishing of Society Journals…

Something to think about from the Publishing Archeology site: 

What if the Society for American Archaeology were to make its journals Open Access?

 

What would be the positive and negative impacts if the SAA were to transform its scholarly journals (American Antiquity, “AA;” and Latin American Antiquity, “LAA”) from Toll Access to Open Access (“OA”)? This entry is a thought experiment whose purpose is to stimulate thinking about OA issues. I’m sure there are relevant factors that I am unaware of or can’t think of right now.

Positive Impacts

1. Improved quality of articles and book reviews.
2. Vastly increased access to the journal.
3. Faster publication of articles and the reduction of backlogs.
4. Journal web sites.
5. An opportunity for journal reorganization….

Negative Impacts

1. Loss of subscription revenue.
2. Potential death of the printed versions of the journals….

The entire posting is at:  http://publishingarchaeology.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-if-society-for-american.html

 

What is Open Access and why should I care?

Open Access is a growing international movement that uses the Internet to throw open the locked doors that once hid knowledge. It encourages the unrestricted sharing of research results with everyone, everywhere, for the advancement and enjoyment of science and society.

Open Access is the principle that publicly funded research should be freely accessible online, immediately after publication, and it’s gaining ever more momentum around the world as research funders and policy makers put their weight behind it.

The Open Access philosophy was firmly articulated in 2002, when the Budapest Open Access Initiative was introduced. It quickly took root in the scientific and medical communities because it offered an alternative route to research literature that was frequently closed off behind costly subscription barriers.

Now Open Access is on a roll. Recent Funder Mandates — including that of the US National Institutes of Health (the world’s largest research funder), which now requires that all their funded research be placed in an openly accessible database — have further strengthened the prospects for Open Access to all research.

A new website at http://openaccessday.org/ has recently been established.

Open Access Day is October 14. 

This educational and fun series of events, competitions, and give-aways is brought to you by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Students for FreeCulture, and the Public Library of Science (PLoS).

Open Access Day will help to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access, including recent mandates and emerging policies, within the international higher education community and the general public.

Here’s what Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC said about Open Access Day:

“The momentum behind Open Access to research has been accelerating for some time now, even before the mandates at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Harvard University. Events beyond the US especially underscore the higher education community’s commitment to having the access they need. Open Access Day will provide a perfect way for folks to come together, consider and celebrate the ramifications of the global shift that we are experiencing”….More