More on the big koan: self-archivingFollowing my essay in the last issue on why FOS progress has been slow, our discussion forum received many thoughtful postings. Have a look.
Free Online Scholarship (FOS) Newsletter
May 23, 2002
by Peter Suber
There are two primary paths to FOS: open-access journals and self-archiving. Progress along both paths has been slower than our opportunities would allow. However, it's easier to explain slow movement along the first path than along the second. All eight of the points in my essay apply to open-access journals, but only a few apply to self-archiving --namely, that scholars tend not to understand the problem, that they tend to misunderstand the solution, and that slow progress itself has created a vicious circle in which relatively few institutions have created eprints archives.
If you want to deepen the discussion, focus on why self-archiving isn't spreading more rapidly than it is. Creating an archive is now painless with free software, maintaining an archive takes minimal effort, hosting one takes server space that any university could donate without noticing, and the benefits are immediate and cumulative.
Moreover, there is a network effect. One telephone is useless, but every new telephone makes every existing telephone more useful. The situation is similar though not quite so stark with eprints archives. One eprints archive is useful for the authors who deposit their papers in it and for the readers who happen to need access to those papers. But readers are much more likely to find what they need as more archives join the network of distributed archives. Cross-archive search engines make it unnecessary for readers to know which archives exist, where they are located, or what they contain. Researchers using these search engines will notice that they find what they are looking for more often as more archives join the system. As more readers and researchers find the body of archived literature useful, more will turn to it in their research, multiplying the benefits for authors as well. Every new archive makes every existing archive more useful.
That is one more reason for every university and laboratory to start an archive, in case there weren't enough reasons already. Think of it like a matching grant. If your employer matches your charitable contributions, you have a rare chance to amplify your donations. In this case, the network effect matches your FOS contribution. When your institution participates in self-archiving, the gain to all users is greater than the set of papers in your archive.
So if it's easy, free, useful, and ready right now, why isn't it spreading faster?
Self-Archiving FAQ(In case your institution's administrators or tech people are misled about the simplicity or legality of self-archiving.)
Eprints software, for creating OAI-compliant archives for self-archiving(To get started now.)
You can advance the cause of self-archiving if you are a scholar or represent a university, library, journal, publisher, foundation, learned society, or government. Here's how.(No more excuses. It's not just an opportunity for other people to seize.)
FOS discussion forum(Anyone may read; only subscribers may post; subscription is free.)
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http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/4314494/suber_news5-23-02.htmlThe Free Online Scholarship Newsletter is supported by a grant from the Open Society Institute.
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This is the Free Online Scholarship Newsletter (ISSN 1535-7848).
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Peter Suber's page of related information, including the newsletter editorial position
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/index.htm
Newsletter, archived back issues
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/archive.htm
Forum, archived postings
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SOA-Forum/List.html
Conferences Related to the Open Access Movement
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/conf.htm
Timeline of the Open Access Movement
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/timeline.htm
Open Access Overview
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm
Open Access News blog
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html
Peter Suber
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters
peter.suber@earlham.edu
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