Oliver Graute asked Herbert Reul, member of the European Parliament, for his views on OA. Reul responded that he thinks OA and TA should compete in the market and that government should not intervene by setting policy. Moreover, he likes browsing print books and journals. (Thanks to Infobib.) Read the exchange in German or Google's English.
Comment
Reul must have thought the question was about which journals should be read or supported by libraries and researchers. That's an area where the government should not intervene by setting policy. But if the question is whether governments should require OA for publicly-funded research, then it must be decided by governments. We don't let the market decide whether private corporations may charge members of the public for admission to publicly-funded parks or roads. What would that even mean?
In addition, the domain of scholarly journals is much less market-like than meets the eye. Most scientific research is funded by taxpayers. Most researcher salaries are paid by taxpayers. Most TA journal subscriptions are paid by taxpayers. Journal publishers receive both the articles and the referee reports as donations from authors and referees. Not even TA publishers really want to exclude government money from this sector. That would be the end of most research, most universities, and most academic publishing. If government money and government policy are already in this domain with both feet, then it's a polite fiction, or worse, to pretend that it's a market like any other and that governments should give up their responsibility to decide whether public money is being spent in the public interest.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/11/2009 04:40:00 PM.
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.
