Re: Summary paper from the Publishing Research Consortium

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:14:50 +0000

On Mon, 19 Mar 2007, Sally Morris wrote:

> To help the scholarly community better understand and evaluate how open
> archiving might impact journal subscriptions, the Publishing Research
> Consortium has released the summary paper 'Self-Archiving and Journal
> Subscriptions: Co-existence or Competition?'.
>
> This paper is a condensed version of the earlier analysis released in
> November 2006. It looks at librarian purchasing preferences, and concludes
> that mandating self-archiving within six months or less of publication will
> undermine the subscription-based peer review journal. The summary paper,
> together with the original report, is freely available at
> http://www.publishingresearch.org.uk/.

For those who may have forgotten, here also is the critique of (the long
version of) that study:

    Self-Archiving and Journal Subscriptions: Critique of PRC Study
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/162-guid.html
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5795.html

Let me also add that if and when Green OA self-archiving ever does
turn out to cause unsustainable cancellation of subscriptions, the
obvious and natural consequence will be a redirection of those windfall
institutional subscription savings toward paying instead for Gold OA
publication charges.

So the only "risk" of Green OA is a possible, eventual conversion to Gold
OA publishing. The sure outcome, in the meanwhile, is the long overdue
benefits of 100% OA for research, researchers, their institutions,
their funders, R&D industries, and the tax-paying public.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
Received on Mon Mar 19 2007 - 13:40:09 GMT

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