From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2016 16:30:38 +0000

>What am I missing? Do researchers not realize their agency?

I think they do, but like all agents, the range of choices available
to them is limited. Junior faculty technically have the option of
placing their work wherever they want, but if they want to get tenure,
their realistic options are more limited and they may have to publish
in a journal that requires them to give up their copyright.
Researchers (depending on the field) may have extremely limited
options when it comes to funding sources — so if, for example, the
National Institutes of Health says that accepting a grant from them
means accepting certain kinds of reuse licensing on the resulting
publication, the real-world impact on researcher’s choicemaking is
significant. And so forth. No one’s agency is absolute. Not only do we
all get to make choices, but we’re also very often forced to make
choices.

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Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication
Marriott Library, University of Utah
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