> The reality is that
libraries, with research funding agencies, are the
> main source of
money for the whole scholarly publishing ecosystem,
> and if libraries
and funding agencies put their heads together, they
> could significantly
shape the open access and open science
> "movements" in the
way they collectively desire.
This
is a very common misconception among people who don’t
work in libraries, and for some reason it’s proven
very difficult to dislodge. The actual reality is that
libraries are not sources of money at all; they’re
conduits through which money flows. The source of that
money is the libraries’ host institutions.
That
may sound like a hair-splitting distinction, but in
fact it’s an essential one, with fundamentally
important implications. There are many, many
librarians who would love nothing more than to
redirect their institutionally-allocated funds away
from the support of traditional publishing and towards
the reshaping of scholarly communication. The problem
is not a lack of “(putting) their heads together” (I
can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve been
rooms filled with librarians putting their heads
together for this purpose); the problem is that the
institutions from which the library’s money flows have
other priorities in mind, such as ensuring that their
faculty researchers can publish in particular
journals, securing access to expensive content, etc.
Relatively few of these institutions are interested in
investing their resources in turning libraries into
large-scale publishers of open content, or in
otherwise underwriting the free provision of scholarly
publications to the world. Whether these institutional
priorities are right or wrong is an interesting
question, but a separate one.
None
of this is to say that there aren’t examples of
libraries successfully redirecting money towards
various openness initiatives, or that there are no
examples of institutions that have made moves in this
direction – obviously, there have been some very
impressive examples of both. My point is that such
initiatives exist and continue only when libraries’
host institutions support them. Because it’s the
institution that is the source of money, not the
library.
---
Rick
Anderson
University
Librarian
Brigham
Young University
(801)
422-4301
[log in to unmask]
Many thanks for this, Melissa
(if I may). As someone involved with the open access
"movement" (whatever that is) since the beginning, I can
say that the main goal was - surprise! - to improve
access to the scholarly literature. Stevan Harnad, for
example, was very clear on this. right from the mid
1990s.
Librarians sometimes
approached the issue of access as if the only issue were
the steep rising costs of journals and open access were
a potential lever to rein in publishers' greed. This
created many tensions amon OA supporters.
The reality is that libraries,
with research funding agencies, are the main source of
money for the whole scholarly publishing ecosystem, and
if libraries and funding agencies put their heads
together, they could significantly shape the open access
and open science "movements" in the way they
collectively desire.
And various signals point to a
gradual movement in that direction.
Jean-Claude
On 2024-03-06 12:32,
Melissa Belvadi wrote:
Whether
you think it has succeeded (or is a work in
progress on the right path) depends on what you
think the goals were. Lately it seems to me that
some people are moving the goal posts, which makes
success hard to even define, much less measure.
As
an academic librarian, I thought the goal was to
reduce the cost to our institutions of run-away
journal price inflation. It has not succeeded at
that, at least not yet. I keep asking my
colleagues to have a conversation about what
threshold of OA content in a journal package (or
even single journal sub) would justify cancelling
the sub. No one so far here at UPEI nor anywhere
else that I know of has been willing to openly
declare such a figure, or even come up with
criteria for coming up with a figure on a sub by
sub basis.
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Hi
David,
This
is an interesting argument, if you assume
the open movement has succeeded. Many say it
has not.
Best,
Glenn
Unfortunately I
think it is rather the opposite. Reform
movements like open are typically based on
vague concepts which support agreement among
diverse positions. When the movement
succeeds to the point of implementation, as
open has, these deep differences surface.
But the common ground is still there, as you
say. What to do about the differences is the
hard part.
Indeed,
a lot of a the disagreement in this space
over the last 20+ years has stemmed from
unclear vocabulary. Do you support open?
Sure! If by “open” you mean this and that,
but not the other thing. Do you support
reusability (CC-BY)? Absolutely, but maybe
not the kind where I lose control of my
work, so sign me up for CC-BY-NC-ND
instead—or heck, is there something called
“copyright” I can use? How about embargos?
Sure---let’s drop ‘em, unless my work is
tied up in patents, or clinical trials, or
humanities…. Is publishing a business?
Sure---in the sense that it needs to be
run like a commercial entity (another
rabbit hole) so it’s sustainable
(quicksand), but not too profitable (more
judgements). The miasma of options and
side effects has also been difficult to
wade through. What about green, gold,
hybrid, and diamond (all with their pros
and cons)? What about non-journal options?
Unintended consequences (to whom)?
Predatory journals (not to everyone)? Peer
review (whose version)? IP theft (heroic
to some)? Impact evaluation (which
governments and publishers love)?
Long-term vision (whose vision)? And so
on.
To
me, anyway, vocabulary and miasma have
made combatants out of colleagues. We
spend so much time defending our
definitions and positions that we lose
sight of our common goals and common
ground.
I think part of
the problem is ambiguity around the word
“commercial.” Sometimes people use it to
mean “for-profit” and sometimes they use
it to mean “involving a product or service
for sale.” By the former definition, PLOS
(to take one example) is a noncommercial
entity; by the latter, it’s a commercial
entity. If we aren’t certain we’re all
using the word to mean the same thing, the
conversation is tough.
---
Rick
Anderson
University
Librarian
Brigham
Young University
(801)
422-4301
[log in to unmask]
This
is an interesting philosophical angle to
discuss. I suspect we have a nice
audience here.
Can
anyone provide an example of a
publication or scholarly endeavor that
is not "entangled" by "commercial
imperatives" of some form..?
I've
produced "zero budget" publications
myself... but only because my university
subsidized the platform they were on and
I contributed my labor (which was
underwritten by my day job). And when
these volunteer projects encroached on
my job, or the university cut their
support, I was forced to cut them back.
Artists
and scholars historically have been
endowed in some manner, by a benefactor,
grant, independent wealth..., but I
don't believe that means they were
independent of any commercial
imperatives.
Certainly
it is possible to minimize these
imperatives to allow as much scholarly
freedom as possible, but I believe there
is always a bottom line.
I'm
not attacking Jean-Claude here. I
support their idealism, but not sure it
is a reality.
Best,
Hugh
Jarvis
University
at Buffalo
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date:
Tue, 5 Mar 2024 05:47:06 -0500
From:
Jean-Claude Guédon <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
Re: European Policy Shifts
Toby,
I
was not responding to the journal issue.
In fact, I have the feeling we largely
agree on this topic. What I was
objecting to was the claim that you
succeeded (whatever that meant) because
you followed a commercial framework. I
continue to believe that entangling
commercial imperatives with knowledge
production and dissemination generates
too many negative distortions in the
knowledge-producing processes.
Jean-Claude
On
2024-03-04 07:48, Toby Green (He - Him)
wrote:
>
Jean-Claude,
>
>
I don’t think anecdotes can ever be
established law ;-).But there are
>
~30,000 ‘anecdotes’ in Policy Commons,
demonstrating that research and
>
knowledge can be shared - at scale -
without journals.
>
<snip...>
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