From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2012 22:46:46 -0500

Yet another good example of the revenge of unintended consequences!
And I like Stevan's terms "gold fever" and "rights rapture."  After
being bashed over SOPA and PIPA, publishers will be quietly chuckling
all the way to the bank as both Finch and RCUK provide the path to
maintaining their businesses with healthy profit margins.  As usual,
the losers in all this will be the authors themselves, who rarely have
any voice in establishing such policies and approaches.

Sandy Thatcher


> From:  [log in to unmask]
> Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:06:16 -0400
>
> ** Cross-Posted **
>
> Thursday, July 26, 2012
>
> When on July 16th Research Councils UK (RCUK) published its updated
> Policy on Access to Research Outputs the Open Access (OA) movement
> greeted the news with enthusiasm. This was hardly surprising: unlike
> the recommendations in the controversial Finch Report (published a
> month earlier), RCUK stressed that it continues to view both gold OA
> publishing and green OA self-archiving as equal partners in any OA
> policy.
>
> Gold and green are the two strategies outlined eight years ago when
> the OA movement was born, and are viewed as being essential components
> of any successful transition to OA.
>
> By contrast, Finch concluded that the main vehicle should now be gold
> OA, either via pure open access journals or via hybrid journals, and
> that this should be funded by article processing charges (APCs).
>
> At the same time, Finch argued, it was time to downgrade green OA, and
> reduce the role of institutional repositories to merely, "providing
> access to research data and to grey literature" and assisting in
> digital preservation.
>
> Set alongside the Finch proposals, OA advocates quickly concluded that
> RCUK's policy was a godsend.
>
> One of the first to applaud the new policy was long-standing OA
> advocate, and self-styled archivangelist, Stevan Harnad. The minute
> the report was published a relieved Harnad began flooding mailing
> lists with messages congratulating RCUK on coming up with a policy
> that not only defied Finch, but was stronger than its current OA
> policy.
>
> But as Harnad set about talking up the policy, and seeking to win over
> sceptics and doubters, he himself began to have doubts. And eventually
> he was driven to the conclusion that he had no option but to withdraw
> his support for the RCUK policy - which he now characterises as
> "autistic", and a "foolish, wasteful and counterproductive step
> backwards".
>
> How has what at first sight seemed so desirable rapidly become
> something terrible? Curious to find out, I contacted Harnad. I publish
> the email interview that emerged from our conversation.
>
> http://poynder.blogspot.com/2012/07/oa-advocate-stevan-harnad-withdraws_26.html#more