From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2012 10:09:10 +0100

This is not a comment on Professor Harnad's restatement of his belief
but on his remarks about the baleful influence of the publisher lobby.

There were three publishers on the Finch committee (out of seventeen
members). It is curiously difficult to pick up this list if you just
Google. I found more about birds! I am therefore giving the route to
the site - http://www.researchinfonet.org/publish/finch/wg/.

Two of the publishers worked for commercial companies. However one of
these was Bob Campbell of Wiley-Blackwell who has spent a very long
career working with learned societies as a publishing partner. I do
not expect many academics see the list but they will know that
Campbell is respected by the societies and associations who represent
the scholarly community. The second was Wim van der Stelt. I cannot
tell from the corporate site exactly what his current responsibilities
are, but I do know that he was the link between Springer and
BioMedCentral - the largest OA publisher. The third was Steve Hall
from the Institute of Physics Publishing.

I do not know of any evidence that they had a special line to Finch
herself or any special privileges. I do not know of any special
influence that representative bodies for publishing might have had.
Does Professor Harnad?

Some years ago Professor Harnad had a lot of influence on the
conclusions of a Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee in the
UK. Perhaps he expects the same special channel he had then

Anthony

________________________________
From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:32:45 -0400

**Cross-posted*

Irony of ironies, that it should now appear (to some who are not
paying attention) as if the the RCUK & EC were following the
recommendations of Finch/Willets when in point of fact they are
pointedly rejecting them!

RCUK and EC were already leading the world in providing and mandating Green OA.

Finch/Willets, under the influence of the publisher lobby, have
recommended abandoning cost-free Green OA and instead spending scarce
research money on paying publishers extra for Gold OA.

Both RCUK & EC immediately announced that, no, they would stay the
course in which they were already leading -- mandatory Green OA. (They
even shored it up, shortening the maximum allowable embargo period,
again directly contrary to Finch/Willets!)

What Finch/Willets have mandated is that £50,000,000.00 of the UK's
scarce research budget is taken away annually from UK research and
redirected instead to paying publishers for Gold OA.

The UK government is free to squander its public funds as it sees fit.

But as long as cost-free Green OA mandates remain in effect, that's
just a waste of money, not of progress in the global growth in OA.

(A lot of hard, unsung work had to be done to fend off the concerted
efforts of the publisher lobby, so brilliantly successful in duping
Finch/Willets, to dupe the RCUK and EC too. They failed. And they will
fail with the US too. And the UK will maintain its leadership in the
worldwide OA movement, despite Finch/Willets, not because of it.)

Stevan Harnad