Open-Access Week -- Meh

Authors

Paul Royster, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

10-24-2012

Document Type

Article

Citation

Presented at Open Access Week Roundtable, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, October 24, 2012. (The first half of this presentation was originally made at UNL College of Engineering Library, Sept. 6, 2012.)

Comments

Copyright (c) 2012 Paul Royster.

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Abstract

How the author went from “OA—Hooray” to “meh.” There are 2 kinds of “open access”: gratis vs. libre. Publishers and membership organizations disrespect gratis because it does not use CC license to convey unlimited re-use rights. Institutional repositories hold many types of materials under many different permission or license terms, and cannot automatically convey re-use rights they do not control. The promoters of Open Access Week tend to gloss over their re-use stipulations and adopt a Gold OA publisher approach to access in the name of a “good cause.” While open access is undoubtedly better than toll-access or no access, those who have labored in the vineyard for a number of years but now find themselves excluded by the radical “CC-BY or nothing” wing can be excused for opting out of the fluffy celebrations and self-congratulations. Our philosophy is we support the authors and work for the widest dissemination of their work; we don’t support paying publishers to ransom back content, and we don’t believe the world needs unlimited rights to re-distribute or re-use authors’ works without permission.