[Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit

Fri Jan 15 05:08:22 CST 2016

I get the point on the open access argument but think that in general
whether behind a paywall or not most papers are relatively easy to get. for
paywalled papers people have numerous options, writing to the author
obviously is one and that is not difficult, continuing with the Zootaxa
example in their online preview of papers the corresponding authors contact
details are included. For myself I always try to immediately respond to
these. Second is ResearchGate where many authors upload their papers
irrespective of the paywall issue, if they dont but include the reference
the clicking of Request full text, button is there. Many libraries also do
still carry access to papers and the more specialised ones such as our
field can often be obtained through any University library. Lastly of
course are list serves like this where i can write a post saying does
anyone have .... and it will be emailed to me by someone, we tend to share.

For people not in science who want to be, eg the truckie example mentioned
earlier, well part of wanting to be in any field is learning how to get the
information you want. They only have to learn how to access the
information. If the desire is there it does not take long to learn these
basics.

In all honesty the only papers I have found very difficult to get are
obscure journals with limited runs, generally older articles.

As to the concern of public funding being used for publishing, I agree that
in any grant I have seen or been a part of the publishing of the findings
is an accepted and expected cost within the grant. Considering how much
these grants are often for, the few hundred in publishing is negligible, it
is also of benefit to the granting agency as it is a demonstration and
justification of the spending. Hence in most of my grants copies of all
publications were submitted to the agency in the final reports.

cheers Scott

On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 7:00 AM, Roderic Page <Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk>
wrote:

> Hi Gerwin,
>
> Yes, you could qualify it with “immediate” or “easy” access. But to me
> access means I can see it right now, for free on my device (computer,
> tablet, phone). I suspect for most people, if it’s not freely available
> online then it’s not accessible.
>
> Regards
>
> Rod
>
> > On 15 Jan 2016, at 08:52, Gerwin Kasperek <sls2411 at ub.uni-frankfurt.de>
> wrote:
> >
> > Rod, you wrote that in the traditional model ... "3. Public doesn’t have
> access to that research".
> >
> > At least for the public in Germany (and presumably many other
> countries), this is not quite true. There are libraries providing published
> documents in various ways. If the user's local library doesn't have a
> licence or hardcopy for a specific publication, he can order via
> inter-library loan. There are international inter-library loan services as
> well. We could say "3. Public doesn’t have _immediate_ access to that
> research".
> >
> > Regards
> > Gerwin
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> > Dr Gerwin Kasperek
> > University Library Johann Christian Senckenberg
> > Frankfurt am Main, Germany
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Roderic Page
> Professor of Taxonomy
> Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
> College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
> Graham Kerr Building
> University of Glasgow
> Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
>
> Email:          Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk
> Tel:                    +44 141 330 4778
> Skype:          rdmpage
> Facebook:       http://www.facebook.com/rdmpage
> LinkedIn:       http://uk.linkedin.com/in/rdmpage
> Twitter:                http://twitter.com/rdmpage
> Blog:           http://iphylo.blogspot.com
> ORCID:          http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7101-9767
> Citations:
> http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=4Z5WABAAAAAJ
> ResearchGate    https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Roderic_Page
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Quoting Roderic Page <Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk>:
> >
> >> Reading this thread suggests that there’s still a lot to do to make the
> case for Open Access. There seems to be confusion and misunderstanding
> about some of the motivations behind making academic literature freely
> available to all.
> >>
> >> If you have 8 minutes to spare, here's a nice video from PhD comics
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5rVH1KGBCY
> >>
> >> Regarding the arguments about public money, the traditional model is
> something like this:
> >>
> >> 1. Public fund scientists to do research
> >> 2. Public funds university libraries to pay millions per year to
> subscribe to journals so researchers can read the literature
> >> 3. Public doesn’t have access to that research
> >> ...
> >> ...
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> > Celebrating 29 years of Taxacom in 2016.
>
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>
> Celebrating 29 years of Taxacom in 2016.
>

-- 
Scott Thomson
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