[LINK] more about open info access ...

[Tom Worthington]

At 03:10 PM 31/03/2009, Roger Clarke wrote:
>... ask for ... feedback on ... Open Access to Journal Content as a 
>Case Study in Unlocking IP ...   http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/OAJC-0904.html
>
>... OA, ePrints and repositories movements has not, or at least not 
>yet, resulted in success in practice. This is because only a small 
>proportion of papers are actually
>self-deposited ...

The self deposit process seems to me to be a flawed business model 
derived from a librarian's outdated idea of how publishing is done.

Having set up the ACS <http://dl.acs.org.au/> and IFIP 
<http://dl.ifip.org/> digital libraries, it seems to me it is much 
simpler and cheaper to make an open access publication, than try to 
get people to put copies of papers from old publications in a 
repository. Setting up AJIS <http://dl.acs.org.au/index.php/ajis> 
with papers borne digital was much simpler than the IFIP DL which has 
to take items already published elsewhere.

The problem to me seems to be that librarians are used to getting 
copies of things which someone else has already published. Publishing 
used to be an expensive and complex process. But with e-publishing 
the mechanics of the process is easier. It is a lot easier to get 
authors to put the content and metadata into the system when they 
first submit their paper, than try and get them to do it later as a 
pre- or post print, or to try and automatically extract the data from 
someone else's system.

There is a powerful motive for an author to provide the required 
metadata and content for an open access e-journal: if they do not, 
their paper will not be published. With a pre or post print into an 
archive, they author has little incentive to deposit, as they do not 
get any extra credit (or cash) for doing it.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University