From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2013 01:12:47 +0000


>If there is a Green OA version on the Web, why would a user be consulting
>a librarian at all, in this day and age (except if they want the version
>of record)? No mediation required, for Green access.

In the long term that will be true, if Green OA does in fact become truly
pervasive. In the short- to middle-term, however, users will keep
requesting ILL and document delivery of articles from journals to which
the library doesn't subscribe. (Even today, this process does not
typically involve anything that can reasonably be called "consultation."
It usually just means filling out an online form.)

>> With all the
>> subscriptions cancelled, how will publishers continue to provide the
>> services on which the Green OA model depends for its viability?
>
>By downsizing to just the provision of peer review, paid for per round
>of refereeing. If not, their titles, ed-boards, authorships and
>readerships
>will simply migrate to other, Fair-Gold publishers, who will.

I'm curious as to the basis for believing that this will happen in the
marketplace generally (rather than among pockets of boutique OA
publications). I'm not sure there's any reason to believe that a critical
mass of authors wants things to go in this direction, and I'm quite
certain that publishers don't want it to happen. Do you anticipate that
funder mandates will grow in pervasiveness and coerciveness to such a
point that they force it? Do you expect institutional OA policies
eventually to morph from the "non-mandatory mandates" that are prevalent
today into effectively mandatory ones? And if so, on what basis do you
expect those things to happen?

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