From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2015 21:51:49 -0400

I don't want to get into the middle of this ongoing dialogue between
Kevin Smith and Alicia Wise--though I will say that the persistent
politeness is truly surreal.  Really, guys, take a swing at one
another. We know you want to!

Kevin, however, makes a remark that seems wrong to me.  I don't mean
wrong in the sense of factually incorrect, but wrong in the sense that
when we look at all those arrows pointing to the future, which one is
likely to emerge as the winner? The tragic thing about this game is
that we will all be long gone ourselves before the results come in.
So we are prophets without a prayer.  This is not as bad as it sounds,
inasmuch as, paraphrasing Bob Dole's comment about the Vice
Presidency, it's an indoor job and requires no heavy lifting.

It's the remark about subscriptions that just doesn't seem right to
me.  Everywhere you look in media businesses today, subscriptions are
surging.  The subscriptions can be HBO, Netflix, Oyster, Scribd,
Audible--this list can go on until it tries the patience of our
esteemed moderator.  Meanwhile, even in the tiny little patch of
scholarly communications, the revenue earned from subscriptions
continues to rise year over year.  The growth may not be what was once
promised to Wall Street a decade ago, but there is no evidence that
the economic model or the organizations that are built upon that model
are fading into irrelevance. Indeed, one of the more intriguing
projects I have been involved with the past year applies the
subscription model to a variant of Gold open access.  PeerJ's
membership model is yet another flavor of this model.

It doesn't matter if Kevin or Alicia or anyone else agrees with me or
not. All this happens independently of ourselves. The economy is
impersonal, human agency is overrated. But it is fun to go to the
track and bet on the horses.  Here's $2 on the subscription model to
win, and another $2 for Gold OA to place.  Green OA, alas, ends up
outside the money.

Joe Esposito



On Tue, Jul 7, 2015 at 9:05 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Kevin Smith <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2015 12:07:36 +0000
>
> Dear Alicia,
>
> Thank you for the additional information.  The reason I think this is one
> factor among several that make Elsevier's new policy more complex and
> probably unworkable is that these differing embargo lists mean that
> repository managers will need to determine the nationality of all authors
> on any given paper and then consult the correct embargo list.  Since this
> applies at the article level, U.S. repositories will undoubtedly need to
> apply both lists in determining appropriate embargoes for any paper
> authored by scholars from both countries.  It even raises the question of
> who is a U.K. author; is it a U.K. citizen (regardless of where they
> work), someone who lives in the U.K. (regardless of nationality or place
> of employment), a person employed by a U.K. institution, or a researcher
> who is funded by a U.K. body?
>
> We also must agree to disagree, I think, about the continuing role of the
> subscription model.  In my opinion, one of the most urgent tasks for
> libraries is to find ways to transition their collection funds from
> supporting the consumption of scholarship (through subscriptions) to
> supporting its production (where the result will usually be some type of
> open access).  Many libraries are working on this transition as I write.
> Subscription business models were an appropriate response to the
> limitations of print technology, but they are rapidly becoming unnecessary
> and even counterproductive, since by their nature they disable the most
> innovative features of the new environment for scholarship.  It seems
> likely, to me, that subscriptions per se will have only a minor role in
> library collecting in the future, and expensive subscription conglomerates
> like Elsevier probably none.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Kevin
>
> Kevin L. Smith, M.L.S., J.D.
> Director of Copyright and Scholarly Communications
> Duke University Libraries
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
> On 7/6/15 6:59 PM, "LIBLICENSE" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >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