From: "Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF)" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2015 17:32:08 +0000

Dear Kevin,

As explained in my last email, the shorter UK embargo periods apply to
any article where any one of the authors is from the UK.  The UK is
the only country in which we currently operate a separate embargo
list, and we take this approach because the national policy is to
focus on a transition to gold OA with green OA as a supporting
mechanism.

If I may, uniform policies with very short embargos rather miss the
real challenge: to make OA work in reality as part of a sustainable
scholarly communication system.  If green OA is to work at scale it
must work alongside the subscription model through which publishing
costs are recovered.  If funders or authors want immediate open
access, then the gold OA model is probably the better route, and
funding for it would be required.  Publishers and librarians may
disagree on the details, but I hope that we can at least agree on the
ideal of a sustainable publishing ecosystem.

We are (all!) working in a complex, changing, and varied international
landscape and it is a challenge (for us all!) to develop clear, fair
and consistent policies which scale and work in practice.  We continue
to believe that the changes in our policies are more clear,
consistent, and flexible for both IRs and for commercial platforms and
that they will help to make OA work in practice.

With kind wishes,
Alicia

-----Original Message-----

From: Kevin Smith <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 12:23:52 +0000

Hi Alicia,

Thank you for this reply.

The more I look at this policy, the more complicated it seems to be.

Does this mean that the same paper could be subject to different
embargoes on self-archiving, if it was written by authors from both
sides of the Atlantic?  One embargo imposed on U.S. co-authors and a
shorter one imposed on U.K. co-authors?  Or would all co-authors
benefit from the shorter embargo allowed for the U.K. co-authors?  Are
any other countries subject to this differential rules (we have a
large number of papers co-written by U.S. authors and authors in
Asia)?

It does seem to me that the message from this aspect of the new policy
is that funders, especially government funders, should insist on the
shortest possible embargos and be inflexible about them.  Otherwise
U.S. authors find themselves at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis
their British counterparts.

I appreciate your continued discussion of this involved and difficult
policy change.

Best,

Kevin

Kevin L. Smith
Director, Copyright & Scholarly Communication Duke University Libraries

-----Original Message-----
From: "Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF)" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 13:09:39 +0000

Hi Kevin,

In the UK, as part of the sustainable approach to OA negotiated
amongst all stakeholders via the Finch Group, we have all made changes
to move forward together.  One of the many changes Elsevier made was
to adopt a shorter embargo list for the UK.  This operates at article
level rather than journal level, and applies whenever there is a UK
author or co-author on a paper.

We obviously want embargo periods that support authors, funders and
journals.  If a funder insists on 6 month embargo periods and we can't
see a way for that to be a sustainable green OA option for a journal
then we have gold OA options available.  Most funders with such
policies provide funding for gold OA publishing.

While I'm here, please may I draw the attention of liblicense readers
to an extremely interesting piece written by Lisa Peets in the Library
Journal:

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2015/06/industry-news/sharing-policy-draws-criticism-elsevier-responds/#_

It suggests a key issue that we are all discussing at present is "who
should control the scholarly communication system".  Researchers do,
of course, and sharing articles is important to them.  Both libraries
and publishers support researchers.  So… how do we move forward
together to facilitate sharing?  This is the context for a
conversation tomorrow (Saturday) at the ALA 2015 Annual Conference
which will be facilitated by Maggie Farrell, the Dean of Libraries and
the University of Wyoming.  Please join us for conversation about
scholarly sharing from 10-11am at the Elsevier booth #504.  It's a
busy event, and there are other meetings on at this time, so do feel
free to come along for a conversation at other times during the day
too!

With kind wishes,
- Alicia

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Smith <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 00:48:24 +0000

There are a couple of things that confuse me in Dr. Wise's answers to
these questions.  I wonder if she could explain what it means to say
that Elsevier uses a shorter embargo list in the UK.  Does this mean
that for some journals an embargo is imposed on US authors but not on
British ones?  Or does in mean that some individual embargoes may be
shorter in the UK?  Is the difference, whatever it is, because of
funder requirements?

Relatedly, is the policy she describes such that if a funder requires
public access in six months, Elsevier will refuse to allow the authors
to comply unless they pay the additional fee for Elsevier's gold OA
option?  Green OA would not be permitted even if required by the
funder?

Thanks for explaining.

Kevin L. Smith, M.L.S., J.D.
Director, Copyright and Scholarly Communications Duke University Libraries