The British Academy has issued report on E-resources for research in the humanities and social sciences (May 2005). Excerpt: 'This Review was prompted by the fact that the nature, provision, and availability of research resources is rapidly changing under the impact of ICT; and that this may have mixed consequences for HSS [humanities and social sciences] researchers' access to resources, both e- and non-e...and the form of resources may also be affected by national policy responses to views on resource supply in STM, e.g. the open access publication movement....There appears to be rather little interest in HSS learned societies in the trend towards open access, primarily because their subscription charges are lower and hence are under less pressure, but perhaps also because it may be difficult for a small or medium society to develop an appropriate business model for a radically new mode of operation which....There is a very widely-held feeling in the STM community that since author material is prepared electronically, and most of the serious editorial functions including peer review are not paid, there is no real cost justification for the size of publishers' subscription levels. Researchers, institutions, and funders see these levels as impediments to the flow of ideas....The principled arguments for journal OAP, under either model, apply to HSS as much as STM researchers. HSS and STM researchers have the same interests in control issues. HSS researchers can therefore benefit from STM community initiatives. But the HSS community could gain from being more directly involved, and not leaving OAP matters to national bodies. So far, there has been little interest in, or pressure for, OA from the HSS community. This is not through conservatism, but primarily because the funding agencies' investment in HSS research is much smaller in absolute terms than that in STM....However while many in HSS seem to see OA as nothing either actually or potentially to do with them, it is important that HSS bodies and individuals consider the implications of OA developments in STM for HSS....OAP for HSS thus justifies more investigation, both in its own right and as a response to rising library costs that are squeezing HSS purchases....We believe that pressures towards open access are likely to increase in STM, and that this will have knock-on effects for HSS, in addition to internal pressures in HSS and SS especially. So we think it important that HSS takes an interest in what is happening and, in particular, seeks to ensure that any moves to OA for STM do not damage HSS, and may rather be positively exploited....REC[ommendation] 20: that responsible parties in HSS express public support for the principle of wide and ready access to research outputs and other research resources. REC[ommendation] 21: that relevant bodies monitor open access developments to ensure that these do not have a negative impact on HSS, and in particular on individual HSS producers through naive applications of 'author pays' policies.' The report also contains an extensive discussion of OA repositories that I didn't have space to excerpt here. (Thanks to Clifford Lynch.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/20/2005 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.
