Let’s start by asking the most basic question. Why is an electronic press an appropriate response to academic publishing in disarray? Well, because the academic reputation economy lags behind the technology curve. In some screwy inversion of the history of money, it’s hard to get people to believe in something not backed by solid paper. But what exactly is the form of the shift we are working for? Just: get over the paper fetish? Not that I wouldn’t be pleased enough with just that. But really it seems to me that the main point should be: get over the paper fetish in the right way. And the right way is: by embracing the potential of academic publishing to be a ‘gift culture’....[I]t is important to be clear about how much the logic of academia already fits this model: namely, academics already produce to boost their reputations rather than to get paid....We live in a world of Amazon ‘search inside’, but also of copyright extension and, in general, excessive I.P. enclosures. The groves of academe are well suited to be exemplary Creative Commons. But there is no guarantee they will be. So we should work for that....To repeat: the goal should not be electronic publishing, per se, but embodiment of what academic publishing culture should be like, given the potential of electronic publishing. The answer: a generous gift culture. We need an electronic press that embodies that. This might seem slighting of the sheer advantages of technology itself. But I think that’s coming, one way or the other. What isn’t a foregone conclusion is the advent of a culture able to make the most of that technology....My first ‘Will Work For Whuffie’ post is here, in case you missed it way back in November.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/27/2006 10:23:00 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.
