From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 02:52:53 +0000

Stevan Harnad wrote:  "Independent and critical thinking" researchers
will act according to the evidence: depend on it. They may be slow,
but they are not stupid…"

Not only do I agree that they're not stupid, I wouldn't even say that
they're slow. And as for acting according to the evidence, I couldn't
agree with you more. In my experience talking about these issues with
faculty researchers, their ambivalence about OA is based neither on
stupidity nor on slowness, but on an insufficiency of evidence that OA
is always and necessarily the answer. Researchers tend to see OA
models as presenting a mixed bag of upsides and downsides (as any
publishing model does). Researchers are generally smart and quick
enough to immediately recognize, for example, that mandates constrain
their publishing options, so they approach mandate proposals
cautiously. One way they demonstrate caution is by insisting that such
mandates include powerful escape clauses, thus turning them into
"mandates" rather than mandates.

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