The Chronicle of Higher Education for November 26 has published two letters to the editor in response to John Ewing's article from the October 1 issue. One letter is from Jennifer McCabe, Health and Human Services Librarian at James Madison University. The other is from me. Jennifer's letter is accessible only subscribers, at least so far, but an unabridged copy of mine is available on SOAF.
Quoting Jennifer McCabe's letter: 'Mr. Ewing goes on to ask: "Who says information must be free?"...I would note that it is our tax money that allows much research to take place. And the fact that scholars must cede all copyright to their intellectual output is unconscionable and antithetical to the educational ideal of discourse and sharing of information. Finally, Mr. Ewing suggests that scholars and librarians simply stop dealing with high-priced journals. This is like suggesting to senior citizens that they just take less medicine since drugs are so expensive....Librarians have chosen instead to support the open-access model. Rather than walking away from high-quality journals, we have chosen to nurture competition among journals, with the hope of forcing publishers to be more reasonable about their prices.'
Quoting Peter Suber's letter: 'John Ewing...writes as if advocates want open access only as a means to reduce journal prices. This is mistaken. We want open access itself. As readers, we want open access because it removes barriers to the literature we need for our research and teaching. As authors, we want it because it gives us a much larger audience....No serious advocate has ever said that open-access literature costs nothing to produce. The central claim has always been that there are better ways to pay the bills than by charging readers and creating access barriers....It's important to remember why high prices for journals are harmful. The primary reason is that they decrease subscriptions and therefore access. Open access gives primary attention to the primary problem, which is access....Let's keep trying to reduce prices using Ewing's methods, among others. But let's not wait for that effort to succeed, and let's not settle for lower access barriers when we could have none at all.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/22/2004 10:06:00 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.
