From: Ari Belenkiy <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 18:50:34 -0700

Despite his valuable personal recollections, Steven Harnad  so far
failed to answer  two my questions:

1. Why the EU research must be immediately open for the non-EU
researchers (who are not, in particularly, EU-taxpayers)?

2. Why the EU taxpayers, who contribute different amounts in tax, must
have equal opportunities to access the results of the EU research?

[Of course, EU could be substituted here for Britain or the US or
Russia or China or etc.]

Ari Belenkiy



On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 5:56 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 01:26:01 -0400
>
> I am flattered that Dr. Watkinson feels I had special influence on Ian
> Gibson and his Select Committee. I wish I had had. But alas the truth
> is as I have already written: I was not one of the 23 witnesses invited
> to give oral evidence (several publishers were).  Ian's parliamentary
> assistant Sarah Revell pencilled me in for a personal appointment on
> Wednesday October 13 2004 if Ian's jury duty ended in time (it did) but
> my recall of that breathless brief audience was that it was too
> compressed for me to be able to stutter out much that made sense,
> and I left it pretty pessimistic. And my over-zealous attempts to
> compensate for it via email were very politely but firmly discouraged
> by  the committee's very able clerk, Emily Commander. So my input
> amounted  to being one of the 127 who submitted written evidence,
> plus that tachylalic audience on the 13th. The rest of the influence
> on the committee was from written reasons, not personal charisma.
>
> As to publishers, and learned-society publishers: they are pretty
> much of a muchness in their fealty to their bottom lines. The only
> learned societies that could testify with a disinterested voice (let
> alone one that represented the interests of learned research
> rather than earned revenues) were the learned societies that
> that were not also publishers.
>
> Stevan Harnad
>
> On 2012-07-22, at 10:42 PM, LIBLICENSE wrote:
>
> > From: ANTHONY WATKINSON <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 09:44:48 +0100
> >
> > Of course publishers are going to lobby against the green route to
> > open access: the arguments from publishers are well known and in no
> > way hidden and whether or not the lobbying is aggressive is a matter
> > of one's own perceptions surely.
> >
> > Going back to 2003/2004 I was asked to be the expert adviser to the
> > committee that we both referred to and had a pleasant conversation
> > with Ian Gibson, the member of parliament who was the committee chair.
> > It seemed to me in our conversation that Dr. Gibson had already been
> > lobbied by Professor Harnad or his disciplines and that his mind was
> > already made up. I cannot remember now whether or not Dr. Gibson said
> > that he had met Professor Harnad but it was definitely the impression
> > I had.
> >
> > Anyway I refused the opportunity of influence because I did not think
> > I could be dispassionate. I did propose working with someone closer to
> > Professor Harnad's views (whom I named) and recommended other people
> > who were neutral and could do the job. In the end Dr. Gibson plumped
> > for David Worlock, who was an excellent choice.
> >
> > I just do not believe on the basis of what others have told me - I
> > have no direct knowledge and nor clearly has Professor Harnad - that
> > the decisions of the Finch committee were pre-determined. Members of
> > the committee I have spoken to do not confirm Professor Harnad's
> > statements.
> >
> > I find this statement fascinating:
> >
> > "There were more -- Learned Societies are publishers too -- but three
> > publishers would already be three too many in a committee on providing
> > open access to publicly funded research".
> >
> > I am impressed by the suggestion that Professor Harnad actually thinks
> > that learned societies, organisations that represent the academic
> > communities, should not be involved in decisions which will have such
> > an impact on the said academic communities!
> >
> > Anthony Watkinson