Thanks, Ivy. But at the risk of being called a stickler again, I guess I’ll just point out that the sentiment you’re expressing (basically, “let’s get things as open as we can as soon as we can and avoid making the perfect the enemy of the good”) is a pretty moderate one. The UC system’s expressed position is much stronger and more categorical: “achieving a truly open scholarly communication system (is a) moral imperative.” The difference between those two positions isn’t a nitpicky semantic one or just a matter of word choice; they look like fundamentally different stances.
As you pointed out, you’re just speaking for yourself, which of course is all you can do. But since there seems to be quite a bit of daylight between your expressed position and the one expressed in the UC statement, I’d still be interested to know what the UC system means by “a truly open scholarly communication system.” If achieving such a thing really is a moral imperative—and if an organization as large and influential as UC is actively working to make it happen—then dang, isn’t it important to be able to say what its characteristics are, and how we’ll know when it’s been achieved?
Is there someone at UC who can answer that question?
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Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication
Marriott Library, University of Utah
Desk: (801) 587-9989
Cell: (801) 721-1687
From: Ivy Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2018 19:09:10 +0000
Hi Rick,
You’re such a stickler for language… ;-)
Without wishing to assert that anything I say here represents the views of the entirety of the University of California, since many hands went into drafting this statement, and of course we are a large and diverse system –
We would like to see a scholarly publishing system emerge in which funding for publication does not interfere with or impose barriers to dissemination and re-use. As a public institution that takes its public service mission seriously, we believe the fruits of UC scholarship should be open to the citizens and scholars of California, the nation, and the world. Clearly this won’t happen overnight, and certainly there are disciplines, genres, and formats that present more challenges than others. The statement we’ve drafted refers specifically to the research journal literature, but like many other institutions, we have experiments and initiatives underway in the monographic space as well. And while many consider open access more feasible in the sciences than in non-STEM fields, making the humanities and social sciences literature open is arguably even more important as a means of informing public policy and stimulating intellectual inquiry. So this is just to say that we would hope that toll access publishing would eventually – and sooner rather than later if we can marshal the collective will – operate under a business model or models that are no longer predicated on restricting and metering access.
So my answer is yes – we envision a world that puts an end to toll access scholarly publishing.
But let’s also avoid the mistake of making the perfect the enemy of the good – the more we can accomplish, the better, and the sooner, the better.
Ivy Anderson
Associate Executive Director & Director of Collections
California Digital Library
University of California, Office of the President
[log in to unmask] | http://cdlib.org
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2018 03:17:34 +0000
This is really interesting, Ivy – thanks for sharing it.
One question: I notice the phrase “the moral imperative of achieving a truly open scholarly communication system.” Can you tell us how UC defines a “truly open scholarly communication system”? Or to put it another way, when that goal has been achieved, what will the scholarly communication system look like? (For example, will there still be any role at all for toll-access publishing, or will it have gone away entirely?)
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Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication
Marriott Library, University of Utah
Desk: (801) 587-9989
Cell: (801) 721-1687
From: Ivy Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2018 17:37:46 +0000
List members may be interested in this statement from the University of California, issued today:
Over the past year, the University of California’s Systemwide Library and Scholarly Information Advisory Committee (SLASIAC), in partnership with our university libraries and the systemwide academic senate’s Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication (UCOLASC), has been considering the twin challenges of journal affordability and the moral imperative of achieving a truly open scholarly communication system. Making the research produced at the University of California open to the world has long been an important goal at UC, as evidenced by the strong Open Access policies enacted at the campus and systemwide level, our many initiatives to create open access publishing options for UC authors (including CDL’s eScholarship publishing service and our early open access pilots with third party publishers), and most recently, a Declaration of Rights and Principles to Transform Scholarly Communication promulgated by UCOLASC.
We believe it is time to take a further step along this road.
http://osc.
Ivy Anderson
Associate Executive Director & Director of Collections
California Digital Library
University of California, Office of the President