From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 22:37:45 +0000

>  there is unanimity among researchers about desiring -- even if not daring, except if mandated, to provide -- OA to peer-reviewed journal articles

If researchers unanimously desired OA, then there would be an OA
mandate on every campus. Nothing is stopping the faculty from
requiring OA of themselves except their own ambivalence about it—an
ambivalence which is deep, real, and widespread. This ambivalence can
be seen in the nature of those mandates that do exist on campuses,
which are almost invariably not mandates at all, but rather
expressions of institutional preference thinly disguised as mandates.

One of the things hobbling the growth of OA is a mindset that assumes
everyone obviously wants OA, and that shouts down critical questions
as heretical rather than treating them seriously as expressions real
and well-informed concern. Take it from someone working with
real-world faculty at a real-world Research I university: in the real
world, researchers are ambivalent about OA. Not against it, but
ambivalent about it: they see benefits, they see costs, they're not
sure that they fully comprehend all of the benefits and all of the
costs, and many are unsure how the benefits and costs will ultimately
balance out for them. Until they're certain the costs will outweight
the benefits, many researchers are unwilling simply to run to the OA
barricades just because someone says they should. (And it's this kind
of independent and critical thinking, incidentally, that tends to make
a good researcher.)

---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Scholarly Resources & Collections
Marriott Library, University of Utah
[log in to unmask]