Prior Topic Thread:
"Author Publication Charge Debate"
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1387.html
On Wed, 30 Jun 2004, Tim Brody wrote:
> Regarding the article in the UK's Guardian newspaper:
>
> "Open access jeopardises academic publishers, Reed chief warns"
> Richard Wray, Wednesday June 30, 2004
> http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/books/story/0,10595,1250591,00.html
This article, like most newspaper articles, repeats the misunderstanding
that authors are expected to pay personally. Though OA Journals are
only one of the ways to OA, they are a good one-- especially when they
will be widely adopted.
Great harm has been done by referring to them as "author-paid" I do not
think it was ever the intent of any of those advocating or practicing
this, that normally the author would personally pay.
At least as I see it, the intent is to use available funds (and hopefully
additional funding to be acquired,) so that funding for publication will
come from the author's university, department, sponsor, granting agency,
or one of the planned special allocations.
Again, as I see it, it is the intent of such journals--in those
exceptional cases where the author must personally pay because other
funding is not available--that the author would request and be permitted
to pay a lower fee.
And surely it is the intent that authors from countries where both
institutional and personal funding is insufficient, would not be charged.
(Even conventional publishers provide their material to such countries
at greatly reduced rates.)
I cannot immediately think of a single term for
author/university/sponsor/etc. , but perhaps someone else will.
And, to save Steven the trouble, I will add that alternative good
means of OA exists, which are surely familiar to anyone reading
this listserv.
Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer Library School, LIU
dgoodman_at_liu.edu
and, formerly,
Princeton University Library
Received on Thu Jul 01 2004 - 22:09:08 BST