[Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit
Stephen Thorpe
stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz
Sun Jan 17 14:02:46 CST 2016
John,
No, that is a red herring. I don't really care what our taxes are spent on. My objection to open access is that public good is being used to defend it when the public gets nothing that they want, and clearly there is something else entirely behind all the pro open access lobbying. I am also concerned that it will result in less taxonomic research being done, due to a proportion of the funding being diverted to open access fees (ultimately ending up as publisher's profits). Maybe USA is awash in excess funding, but N.Z. not so much!
Stephen
--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 18/1/16, John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit
To: "Stephen Thorpe" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
Cc: "Lynn Raw" <lynn at afriherp.org>, "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Received: Monday, 18 January, 2016, 8:42 AM
Stephen's latest
seems to indicate that one should not pay taxes towards that
for whom the individual is not interested in paying for. I
might not, for example, be interested to pay towards
exploration of the moon etc. etc. Some think the
'public' in general should not pay for road upkeep,
but just the user should pay. In the US there is a user pays
approach to health 'care' through insurance which
causes well known problems of access. Its a philosophy.
There are of course other philosophies.
John Grehan
On Sun, Jan 17, 2016
at 2:19 PM, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
wrote:
Lynn,
I don't think that I am the one confusing different
issues at all.
>When the research is paid for by ‘the public” then
there should be an obligation for this to be made freely
available to “the public” whether they are interested or
not<
That is a moot point, which does sound analogous to
helping the proverbial old lady across the road who
doesn't want to cross the road! But let's accept it
for the sake of argument. The crucial point is that open
access makes nothing "freely available"! Let's
try to grasp an analogy. I always travel by public transport
(bus and train), so I buy monthly passes at the start of
each month. Then I have unlimited travel for that month. But
it is not "free" travel! I have just paid for it
in advance, that's all. Same with open access, except it
is worse because most of the public have no interest in
reading most of what they would have paid for in advance
under open access!
The second crucial point is that public money for open
access fees will either result in the public paying more
towards research (with nothing they particularly want in
return), or, most likely, it will result in less research
being done for the same amount of funding (because a
proportion of it is spent on open access fees). Either way,
the public doesn't benefit!
Stephen
--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 18/1/16, Lynn Raw <lynn at afriherp.org>
wrote:
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit
To: "Stephen Thorpe" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
Cc: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu"
<taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Received: Monday, 18 January, 2016, 3:07 AM
Are you
confusing different issues? When the research is paid for
by
‘the public” then there should be an obligation for
this
to be made freely available to “the public” whether
they
are interested or not. Admittedly, perhaps this should
be limited to the residents/taxpayers of the countries
concerned (i.e., EU member states for EU-funded
research).
As pointed out previously, some countries already publish
the reports resulting from government-funded research on
their own websites (e.g. randd.defra.gov.uk). As
a
proportion of the average
person’s annual tax bill the
amount spent on funding taxonomy compared to the overall
research budget is likely to be sufficiently minuscule to
be
virtually undetectable. In the case of corporation-funded
research (unlikely to involve taxonomy) then this is
likely
to be either unpublished and closely guarded for
competitive
advantage or published for general information and used
to
obtain publicity. In this case the open-access model
would
be the appropriate advertising choice. Funding by
charities
is also likely to follow the publicity route with the
open-access model. This leaves researcher-funded research
where the open-access model is probably desirable but
more
likely to be unaffordable. This type of research is also
more likely to concern the many non-affiliated
taxonomists
who also need the availability of open-access
publications
to conduct their research. Maybe it is time to focus on
solutions to this particular problem rather than debate
the
bigger picture.
On 17 Jan
2016, at 05:06, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
wrote:
Yes Elena, clearly something is going
on here under the surface "philanthropy". Note
that either way, the public has to pay to read taxonomic
literature, just either (1) they choose what they want to
read and pay for it (standard model); or (2) they pay in
advance for every single thing that they might want to
read
(open access). Hmmm...
Stephen
--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 17/1/16, Elena Kupriyanova
<Elena.Kupriyanova at austmus.gov.au>
wrote:
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit
To: "'gread at actrix.gen.nz'"
<gread at actrix.gen.nz>
Cc: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu"
<taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Received: Sunday, 17 January, 2016,
5:35 PM
Dear Geoff and et al.,
I have a strange feeling that
as a hypothetical 30
year old
long-distance truck driver fascinated by beetles
you would be looking for a
well-illustrated BOOK (not a
Zootaxa article) on beetles of New Zealand. It is
unlikely
that you would be
complaining when you learn that you either
would need to buy such a book or to
drive (walk) to a
library to
borrow it. Would this be a case of restricting
what people can read because
it's not directly
relevant to
their current job or place in society? We all
buy books, don't we? Why is it ok
for us to buy or borrow
book, but
at the same time we are convinced that scientific
journals should be available to us
instantly at a mouse
click? I am
confused now...
Lena
Dr. Elena
Kupriyanova
Senior Research
Scientist
Marine Invertebrates
Associate
Editor,
Records of the Australian
Museum
Australian Museum Research Institute
1 William Street Sydney NSW 2010
Australia
t 61 2 9320
6340 m 61402735679 f 61 2 9320
6059
Visit: http://www.australianmuseum.net.au
Like: http://www.facebook.com/australianmuseum
Follow: http://www.twitter.com/austmus
Watch: http://www.youtube.com/austmus
Inspiring the exploration of nature
and cultures
-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu]
On Behalf Of Geoffrey Read
Sent: Friday, 15 January 2016 4:53
PM
To: Stephen Thorpe
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our
taxonomic tidbit
I admire your persistence Stephen!
Let's
say I'm a 30 year old long-distance truck
driver. It's okay, but as a
child I collected beetles
and I
still dream of becoming a biologist.
Maybe it won't happen but I'm
planning to go to university
when
I've saved up. Meantime I'm fascinated by the
articles
on beetles at Zootaxa,
and need them to identify what I see
in my garden. I contribute to
Naturewatch too on my days
off.
Damn, so many of the articles are paywalled! It's
really frustrating.
Well
Stephen, I reckon truck drivers too should be able to
read Zootaxa articles gratis and
without begging for them if
it's easy enough for us to make it so. And I
believe
in not restricting what
people can do or read because it's
not directly relevant to their
current job or place in
society.
Geoff
On Fri, January 15, 2016 6:10 pm,
Stephen Thorpe wrote:
But Geoff, you are a
taxonomist and therefore not a
member of the
public (in the relevant sense). The
public should not
have to pay so
that you just might find
something interesting in
articles that aren't
directly relevant to your work (or at
least they should
be
given the
informed choice of whether or not to
pay). Don't think
about it just
from your perspective.
Think instead of how much demand
their really
is for many taxonomic papers, stacked
against the cost
of
making all
of them freely available to everybody.
There is a
difference
between
"hiding information away"
versus using public money to
make it
available to everyone, when only a
handful of
specialists are remotely interested in reading it.
Stephen
--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 15/1/16, Geoff Read <gread at actrix.gen.nz>
wrote:
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic
tidbit
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Received: Friday, 15 January,
2016, 5:17 PM
Stephen,
You
say " absolutely no point in paying
publishers up
front to make
the publications
available freely to everybody in
the world"
The
idea that we should restrict access, hide
away information
from
the public, and make it
difficult to read our
works is abhorrent to
me.
Fortunately we've come a long way in my lifetime
towards open
exchange and discussion - the
internet as the
shining example, and
special mention to the access
via BHL which has
revolutionized our
work as taxonomists
more recently.
Every paper published in
Zootaxa today was
paywalled. I don't have a
subscription, so I don't have the
access to Zootaxa
that I know you
do, but I'm
interested in dipping into a wide
range of taxonomy
when
I see something on the spot that
just might be
worth
reading but is
outside my narrow
specialty. It helps me with my
own work and it's
good to see other ways of
doing things,
interpretations of the code,
and the new techniques
used. To do that
today I need to write ten
begging letters, and wait.
Or pay 140
dollars ($14 per paper). So
I'll look at none of
them.
Yesterday was short paper day
at Zootaxa - every
one of those six
was paywalled
(including one from a colleague at
Elena's
institute),
but could have so
easily have been open access
and read much more
widely for just lunch money for
most of the
authors,
or around a taxi
fare if their
employer pays. Hence my
amazement that people
would
not do that when they had
the chance.
Geoff
-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu]
On Behalf Of
Stephen Thorpe
Sent: Friday, 15 January 2016
2:46 p.m.
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu;
Elena Kupriyanova
<Elena.Kupriyanova at austmus.gov.au>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall
our taxonomic
tidbit
Dear
Elena,
I like your post because I am
trying to get
people
to think this
matter through, and
your post shows that you are
starting to do
just
that. There appears to be a
significant group who
are lobbying for
open access,
even though, as you correctly
point out, it is usually
not very hard to get hold
of publications
for
free, even when they
are not open access.
What matters is that
the people who need to
read the publications can
read them. There
is absolutely no point
in
paying publishers up front to
make the
punlications available freely
to everybody in the world, given
that only
a few
people will ever
need to read most of
them!
Somthing very dodgy
is going on here - those who
stand to gain
financially from open
access are lobbying hard in
favour of it! No
surprises there, really
...
Stephen
--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 15/1/16, Elena
Kupriyanova <Elena.Kupriyanova at austmus.gov.au>
wrote:
Subject: Re:
[Taxacom] Paywall our
taxonomic tidbit
To:
"taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu"
<taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Received: Friday, 15
January, 2016,
1:07
PM
Dear colleagues,
I am really confused
by now re what
the
point of this
discussion is.
Should we make our
taxonomic papers open
access
or should we use our grant
money to do so
instead of
paying
for it out our own pockets? I
honestly cannot
see any
paywall
- whenever I need a paper, I
just write to the
author and ask for a
pdf. I am happy
to
send my own papers
to
anybody who cares to read them
(gosh, where is a
chance
they might even cite
me ;) Besides,
there
is
Researchgate...
Best,
Lena
Dr. Elena
Kupriyanova
Senior Research
Scientist
Marine
Invertebrates
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