That doesn't surprise me. They're a very weird organisation - with an aging
membership and a bizarre legacy. Having said that, they were good to me as
an archaeology student and even funded some research travel. I haven't been
a member for a few years now but the new president was a lecturer of mine.
Maybe I'll see if I can meet him and wave the Open Access flag! *twirls
villainous moustache*
On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 9:12 AM, David Goodman <dggenwp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
According to its website, The Prehistoric Society,
which has never made
its publications available open access except for abstracts, has recently
switched from publishing its own proceedings, to Cambridge University Press
, [
http://www.prehistoricsociety.org/about/news/switch_to_cup_as_publisher/]
, which sells an annual subscription for $175 to libraries, and access to
an individual article for $30. (Individual membership, which includes a
subscription, is £ 35/year . (It does make its newsletter freely
available, at [
http://www.prehistoricsociety.org/publications/past/];
its "Research papers" are also paid access only.
One could call it hypocrisy, except for the problem of how, except for
memberships and subscriptions, are they to get the money to publish?
Probably, like most such societies, most of the members are members
primarily in order to get the Proceedings.
On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 9:26 AM, Andrea Zanni <zanni.andrea84(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
I can't agree more with Liam here.
I'm not an expert in museums, but I know libraries.
When I worked at the university of Bologna, I spoke with hundreds of
researchers, Phd students, professors regarding Open Access.
As readers, they were completely in favour.
But they were always mumbling and thinking otherwise when they, as
authors, were asked to provide their writings/articles in open access.
The good part of this story is: this is how closed access look like.
We should emphasize that.
Aubrey
On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Of course I think that researchers should have
free access to the
collections as a core service of a public cultural collection. That's their
raison d'etre. It should go without saying.
But I can't help also feeling that there is a two-class system in place,
and all of a sudden these researchers have seen what it's like to be in the
non-favoured-class...
In the wiki-verse, and indeed any online user of public cultural
collections, we're very very used to being told that our access requests
will incur a fee (e.g. to get access high-resolution copy of an already
digitised public-domain image) - even when requests to access the same
object in-person would be considered a free service.
Obviously, operating a physical institution that accommodates access to
the collection (e.g. a reading-room in a research-library with all the
lights, heating, security, staffing...) is an expensive service to operate,
but it is considered an important service to provide for free to the
public. Yet, the much cheaper operating cost of providing a digital access
service (an online database) is considered to be a different class of
access-request. Online access-requests are frequently, not always,
considered an opportunity for the institution to make money, whereas
physical access requests are considered core-business. I think that this is
underpinned by a culture that makes a value-judgement about what is the
"right" kind of access.
So now the UK Prehistoric Society would like the digital open-access
community to stand with them to fight for the right to have free access to
research collections - and I agree. But, would the UK Prehistoric Society
stand with the digital open-access community in our fight to have digital
usage considered no longer be considered a "second-class citizen"?
I think there is an interesting parallel with 1968 Ford motor company
strikes in the UK
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_sewing_machinists_strike_of_1968
(see also the 2010 film "made in Dagenham").
At the time, the women working for Ford were paid less for an equivalent
level of skilled work. The women had supported the men's previous
unionised-action for better work-conditions, but when they asked for the
Union's support in their equal-pay fight, the Union wasn't interested. The
(male) union-leaders like having the female employees support for their own
claims but didn't consider the women's claims to be serious/important - and
feared that if the women were paid the same amount as the men, then the
company would fire some of the men to keep costs down. A two-class
system...
Eventually the right to equal-pay-for-equal-work became the law and the
world didn't end...
So, I would like the UK Prehistoric Society researchers to know I
support their right to free-access to undertake their research in the
public collections of the UK. But, would they support us in return?
-Liam
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
On 20 March 2015 at 21:38, Pat Hadley <pat(a)pathadley.net> wrote:
Hi all,
There's been a recent bit of coverage in the UK over the issue of
museums charging researchers for collection access.
The strongest arguments for free and open access have come from the
Prehistoric Society and can be seen on the Museum's Association Website
<http://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/17032015-museums-criticised-for-charging-researchers-for-access>
.
At York Museums Trust (hosts of my project) they do not charge
researchers and have recently begun insisting that visiting researchers
openly licence any photographs they take of collections items and
encouraging them to pursue open access publishing of the research output
(not always possible).
I was wondering whether the GLAMwiki movement might like to speak on
the issue and encourage GLAMs with which we are working to consider this
part of their openness strategy.
Research is one of the key ways in which collections are enriched. I
for one am fed up with finding obscure notes on collection databases
implying the existence of research done in the last decade which is now
invisible online and/or has no paper-trail at the museum.
What do people think?
Cheers,
Pat
--
Pat Hadley
Yorkshire's open culture brain-for-hire
pathadley.net
@pathadley <http://twitter.com/pathadley>
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DGG at the enWP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
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