Re: Draft IFLA Manifesto on Open Access

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 16:42:31 +0100

On Mon, 31 Mar 2003, Jan Velterop wrote:

> I very much welcome the IFLA manifesto. Of course, the wording could be
> improved, as everything can always be improved, and that's exactly why a
> draft was sent out. Of course IFLA takes a library view and not purely an
> author-one, and that is reflected in the points of their manifesto. That it
> should be 'doomed to fail' is unnecessarily gloomy and unwarranted. The
> sheer fact that the IFLA puts its name under a manifesto expressing
> commitment to open access is highly significant.

It is doomed to fail if it is incoherent. And as currently worded it is
incoherent -- that is, if it is indeed an *Open Access* Manifesto. (If
it is merely a Fair Use Manifesto or a Licensing Manifesto, I have
nothing to suggest, except not to call it an Open Access Manifesto!).

[And about communities: Libraries can express their support, and can
encourage and help the (refereed-article) author community to submit to
open-access journals where they are available, and to self-archive their
toll-access articles where open-access journals are not available, but
only this author community can actually *do* either of these things.]
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#libraries-do
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/unto-others.html

> Clearly, maximum research impact is the goal. Also of IFLA.

Yes, but IFLA has other goals it needs to satisfy too, namely, to
get through the next few years of toll-access in such a way as to
minimize cost and maximize access within their serials acquisitions
budgets. That is not Open Access.

> Because academic
> authors are not the only agents in the game. Authors may 'decide' to 'give
> away' their papers, but is it truly 'giving away' and is it solely up to
> them? Or are they 'giving' their papers away in the way a company 'gives'
> away their advertisements? Authors *need* to 'give' away their papers for
> the sake of their careers. They do not 'give' away, but they are (rightly)
> being rewarded, albeit in the currency of impact, not money. Because the
> currency of impact, not money, 'buys' them career progress. Their papers
> also include an account of research done and a justification of resources
> spent (their papers being 'the minutes' of their research). Doesn't that
> give the funder and facilitator (the university or research institute) a say
> in the matter? At least potentially? Their reputations also benefit from
> research impact, after all. They are in a position to make a material
> difference to the way open access is progressing. The IFLA manifesto may be
> more successful in influencing funders and institutions than earlier
> author-oriented manifestoes have been, for the simple reason that it comes
> from IFLA.

I agree *completely* that refereed-research authors write for research
impact and not for royalty income, that they and their institutions
and funders are the co-beneficiaries of research impact, and that
research papers are like advertisements (which it would be equally
absurd to toll-gate). As you know, I have been struggling to make those
very points for quite a few years now!

http://www.arl.org/sc/subversive/
http://citd.scar.utoronto.ca/EPub/talks/Harnad_Snider.html
http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001693/
http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/harnad.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#1.2
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/Ariadne-RAE.htm
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#institution-facilitate-filling
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#libraries-do
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#research-funders-do

But if the IFLA Manifesto is to help, it must be coherent: It must not
conflate Fair Use and Licensing issues with Open Access, as this draft
does. And it must make the target literature -- refereed research articles
-- crystal clear from the outset,. (I think the draft could easily be fixed,
and then it will be a great help in accelerating the momentum toward
Open Access.)

Stevan Harnad

> Jan Velterop
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Stevan Harnad [mailto:harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk]
> > Sent: 31 March 2003 14:49
> > To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
> > Subject: Re: Draft IFLA Manifesto on Open Access
> >
> >
> > On Sun, 30 Mar 2003, Downes, Stephen wrote:
> >
> > >sh> From: Stevan Harnad [mailto:harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk]
> > >
> > >sh> It is highly desirable and commendable to be committed to the
> > >sh> widest possible access to information. But in order to
> > >sh> promote *open access* it is essential to be far more specific
> > >sh> about the *nature* of the information. In particular, the
> > >sh> IFLA Manifesto is doomed to fail and to be ignored if it does
> > >sh> not make a specific and explicit distinction between
> > >sh> information that its creator *does* wish to give away, and
> > >sh> information its creator does *not* wish to give away. (Notice
> > >sh> that I said *creator* and not *publisher*.)
> > >sh> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#1.1
> > >
> > > I find this objection somewhat odd.
> > >
> > > Libraries legally acquire information - this is manifest in
> > the third point
> > > of the declaration. They then loan this material free of
> > charge to people
> > > who wish to read it. This has been the function of
> > libraries for decades.
> > >
> > > The objection stated above seems to imply that this
> > direction has been
> > > misguided, and that libraries should provide access to
> > information only
> > > if the creator of the content sanctions this use.
> >
> > Not at all. The objection above simply points out that *Open
> > Access* is
> > not the same as -- and should not be conflated with -- *Fair
> > Use*. Fair
> > Use is a 3rd-party matter, involving libraries (and users),
> > not authors
> > (1st party), nor even publishers (2nd party, although they
> > are of course
> > part of the negotations). Open Access, in contrast, is a 1st-party
> > matter: It is *authors* who are giving away their refereed research in
> > order to maximize its usage and impact. Fair Use covers far
> > more of the
> > literature, much of it not consisting of author give-aways at all.
> >
> > Please see the definition of "open access" in the BOAI
> > initiative to see
> > how it differs from "fair use" or "fair dealing."
> > http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#openaccess
> > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#5.2
> >
> > Open Access and Fair Use are not altogether orthogonal, in the sense
> > that both are concerned with trying to maximize access and
> > usage -- but
> > there the resemblance (so far superficial and uninformative) stops. It
> > is in the differences and the details that a coherent agenda for Open
> > Access (not Fair Use) emerges. To conflate the two would
> > simply make the
> > IFLA Open Access Manifesto incoherent and ineffectual. (If
> > the IFLA also
> > has a Fair Use Manifesto, it should make it separately! Fair
> > Use is not
> > only not the same as Open Access, it applies to a different
> > corpus. And
> > indeed for Open Access materials, Fair Use is moot -- because
> > free public
> > online access trumps 3rd-party fair use.)
> >
> > > Why should a creator obtain this new right? Why should the
> > historical
> > > function of the library now be limited? How could the declaration be
> > > considered "doomed to failure" when it is, at heart, reflective of a
> > > library's traditional practice?
> >
> > Why should the author of a book have the right to say he would rather
> > not make it freely accessible to everyone online? I think I will have
> > to let authors speak for themselves on that matter.
> >
> > > It could be argued - and I would argue - that content
> > creators do not
> > > a priori own all possible rights associated with a work.
> > There are limits
> > > on such rights, a tacit recognition that the creation is a
> > product not
> > > only of the author but also of the history and culture of
> > the society
> > > in which it was produced.
> >
> > This all sounds fine if stated in this abstract way, but let's be more
> > specific about it: There is this brilliant paragraph that I
> > could write,
> > and people would like to read, and would be willing to pay to
> > read. But
> > because of a "recognition that the creation is a product not
> > only of the
> > author but also of the history and culture of the society in which it
> > was produced" I am allowed to try to sell it on paper, as always, but
> > it must be made openly accessible online, whether I like it or not,
> > even though this may well kill off *all* of its potential
> > sales, and all
> > of my potential royalty income.
> >
> > My guess -- I am not an expert here, as nothing could be more
> > remote from
> > the case of give-away refereed research, written only for
> > research impact,
> > not royalty income, which is the only case on which I [or the
> > BOAI] have
> > anything substantive to say -- my guess is that such a non-give-away
> > author, faced with the prospect of being unable to sell his paragraph
> > any more, would instead turn to another line of creative work if he
> > could, maybe making patent medicines: a line of creative work that
> > has not been declared to be part of the "collective cultural heritage"
> > simply in virtue of the fact that it is digital rather than analog.
> > http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/17/00/
> >
> > > There is a specific need, which libraries fulfill, to
> > ensure that at the
> > > very least *access* - if not ownership - to information,
> > any information,
> > > is made available to all members of a society, regardless
> > of income. Even
> > > the most expensive journal may now be acquired by any
> > library and thereby
> > > read by any person at no cost whatsoever to the reader. Why
> > should this
> > > change?
> >
> > But that is not called "Open Access," it is called
> > Toll-Access-Licensing. The library pays the license-tolls for access,
> > negotiated with publishers, usually as a function of the size of its
> > institutional readership.
> >
> > If the IFLA has a Licensing Manifesto, it should make it separately,
> > possibly jointly with its Fair Use Manifesto; but certainly
> > not its Open
> > Access Manifesto.
> >
> > > I think that this is what the declaration is trying to
> > express. And I do
> > > not think it is an unreasonable goal.
> >
> > Neither Fair Use nor Licensing is Open-Access.
> >
> > Stevan Harnad
> >
> > >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------
> > --------------
> > > Stephen Downes ~ Senior Researcher ~ National Research
> > Council Canada
> > > Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada
> > > http://www.downes.ca stephen_at_downes.ca
> > > stephen.downes_at_nrc.ca http://www.iit.nrc.ca/e-learning.html
> > > Subscribe to my free daily newsletter featuring news and articles
> > > about online knowledge, learning, community
> > > http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/website/subscribe.cgi
> > > or read it at http://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm
> > >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------
> > --------------
> >
> > NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open
> > access to the peer-reviewed research literature online is available at
> > the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01 & 02):
> >
> > http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
> > or
> > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html
> >
> > Discussion can be posted to: american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org
> >
> > See also the Budapest Open Access Initiative:
> > http://www.soros.org/openaccess
> >
> > the BOAI Forum:
> > http://www.eprints.org/boaiforum.php/
> >
> > the Free Online Scholarship Movement:
> > http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/timeline.htm
> >
> > the OAI site:
> > http://www.openarchives.org
> >
> > and the free OAI institutional archiving software site:
> > http://www.eprints.org/
> >
Received on Mon Mar 31 2003 - 16:42:31 BST

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