From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2013 02:44:03 +0000

[MOD NOTE:  After the message below from Rick, let's declare the
end of this particular thread.  It's been useful for many of us, but we
are getting to a stage of repeat and perhaps personalization that
doesn't advance the discourse.  Coming to this conversation more
or less agnostic, your moderator has become persuaded that
as resources become scarcer, libraries *will* (must?) consider for
cancellation journals that are not "core" for them, their researchers,
scholars, and students -- *provided* the content appears in serious
repositories (universities, research institutes, etc).  By this, I mean
that the articles are available via "green" open access. This will
be done with librarians' usual care and thoughtfulness, in consultation
with constituents.  The challenge (from my view) will be the titles that
are captive in "big deals," especially those where such a deal has
been converted into its most insidious version, the complete and
un-cancellable database model.  Anyhow, let's revisit this matter
after there has been some more practical evidence.  Thank you.]

*****

Rick Anderson writes:

One more thought and then I'll stop infuriating everyone:

>OA is not about subscriptions, or cancellations, it is about
>widespread notification and awareness of research, thus enhancing the
>fields it supports: providing awareness of cognate fields for
>researchers, and neophytes alike, boosting an author's profile, plus a
>lot of reasons that we've been discussing for years.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter much what we believe "OA is about." What
matter are the actual consequences that OA has in the real world. Like
every other system or strategy of scholarly communication, including toll
access, OA has (and will continue to have) consequences both good and bad,
both intended and unintended. Shouting down those who talk about the
downsides might be comforting in the short run and might be good for
rallying the troops, but it won't make the costs disappear. Reality always
wins.

I'm done now. Anyone who wants to have the last word on this can feel free.

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