Abstract: This paper has been accepted for publication in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. A study of Thomson-Scientific ISI ranked Library and Information Science (LIS) journals (n=52) is reported. The study examined the stances of publishers as expressed in the Copyright Transfer Agreements (CTAs) of the journals, towards self-archiving, the practice of depositing digital copies of one's works in an OAI-compliant open access repository. 62 % (32) do not make their CTAs available on the open web; 38 % (20) do. Of the 38 % that do make CTAs available, two are open access journals. Of the 62 % that do not have a publicly available CTA, 40 % are silent about self-archiving. Even among the 20 journal CTAs publicly available there is a high level of ambiguity. Closer examination augmented by publisher policy documents on copyright, self-archiving, and instructions to authors, reveal that only five, 10% of the ISI-ranked LIS journals in the study, actually prohibit self-archiving by publisher rule. Copyright is a moving target but publishers appear to be acknowledging that copyright and open access can co-exist in scholarly journal publishing. The ambivalence of LIS journal publishers provides unique opportunities to members of the community. Authors can self-archive in open access archives. A society-led global scholarly communication consortium can engage in the strategic building of the LIS information commons. Aggregating OAI-compliant archives and developing disciplinary-specific library services for an LIS commons has the potential to increase the field's research impact and visibility. It may also ameliorate its own scholarly communication and publishing systems and serve as a model for others.
PS: This is an updated version of an article archived in January, blogged here 1/24/06.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/11/2006 09:11:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
