From: "Friend, Fred" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 09:23:09 +0000

It is good that Stevan keeps an eye on publisher policies for us, and
it is also good that Peter reminds us that universities do have the
power to say "no" to publishers. Stevan is correct that the
distinction Elsevier and other publishers attempt to draw between
mandated and non-mandated self-archiving is nonsense, and their policy
should be resisted. Peter's complaint that libraries do not challenge
use or re-use clauses in contracts is not absolutely true, but
libraries certainly do not push such issues as strongly as they could
or should. When I was involved in "big deal" negotiations I regularly
said that we should say "no" to an unsatisfactory deal but nobody else
was willing to go that far. And yet a very senior publisher once told
me that librarians have much more power than they realise.

However, librarians cannot bear all of the blame for giving in too
easily. My hard stance received no backing from senior academics, and
no librarian can refuse to sign an unsatisfactory contract unless they
know that they have solid support from within their university. Of
course Elsevier and other publishers know this and that is why they
want to conclude deals with senior university management, who will
probably agree to unsatisfactory clauses even more readily than the
librarians.

I am sorry to be cynical, but the academic community gets the
contracts it deserves. We have to learn to say "no" and really mean
it.

Fred Friend
Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL

________________________________

On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 8:12 AM, Laurent Romary <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>> With all respect, Stevan, I am not sure it is worth answering publishers' policy tricks with deposit hacks. The core question is: does Elsevier fulfills, by making such statements, its duties as service provider in the domain of scholarly communication. If not, we, as institutions, have to be clear as to what we want, enforce the corresponding policy (i.e. we determine what and in which way we want our publications to be disseminated) and inform the communities accordingly.

I agree with Laurent. We should assert our rights and - if we could
act coherently - we would be able to get them implemented. There is no
legal reason why we cannot assert a zero-month embargo - we are just
afraid of the publishers rather than believers in our own power. (It
wouldn't hurt the publishers as repositories are not yet a credible
resource for bulk readership).

Libraries (including Cambridge) seem to sign any contract the
publisher puts in front of them - they only challenge price, not use
and re-use. In a recent mail on OA the process on Green (paraphrased)
was "we'll see what embargo periods the publishers mandate" [and then
enforce them]. whereas it should have been "we - the world - demand
access to knowledge and will not accept embargos". That's a clear
starting point.

I could believe in Green OA if it were boldly carried out and
repositories actually worked for readers (including machines). As it
is we have "nearly OA" - i.e. not visible. And "OA/ID" - visible at
some unspecified time in the future.

If the OA community could get a single clear goal then it might start
to be effective for the #scholarlypoor, such as Jack Andraka whose
parents buy him pay per view for medical papers.

--
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK