杏吧原创

A BRAND-NEW PhD from the University of X proudly tells his mother he鈥檚 just
published his first refereed journal article. She asks him how much he was paid
for it. He makes a face: 鈥淣othing,鈥� and then begins a long, complicated
explanation.

A fellow researcher at the same university sees a reference to the article.
He goes to the library to get it, but meets the response: 鈥淣ot subscribed to.
Can鈥檛 afford that journal.

Meanwhile, an undergraduate sees the article cited on the Web and clicks on
it. The publisher鈥檚 website responds: 鈥淎ccess denied: only subscribing
institutions have access to this journal.鈥� (The undergraduate loses patience,
gets bored, and clicks on Napster to download a bootleg CD.)

Years later, the same PhD is now being considered for tenure. His
publications are good, but they鈥檙e not cited enough, haven鈥檛 made enough of a
鈥渞esearch impact鈥�. Tenure denied. So it鈥檚 back to applying for research grants.
But his research findings just haven鈥檛 had enough impact: not enough researchers
have read, built upon and cited them. Funding denied.

In desperation, he decides to write a book. Publishers say it鈥檚 interesting
work, but decline to publish it. 鈥淲ouldn鈥檛 sell enough copies. Not enough
universities have enough money to pay for it. Their purchasing budgets are tied
up in their inflating annual journal costs . . . 鈥�

He tries to put his articles on the Web, free for all, to increase their
impact. The journal that originally published them threatens to sue him and his
server-provider for violation of copyright. He asks his publisher: 鈥淲ho is this
copyright intended to protect?鈥� The publisher replies: 鈥淵ou!鈥�

Something is clearly very wrong here. Researchers give away their work; all
they ever want in exchange is that all potential users should be able to access
it. The Web has now created this possibility of free universal access. Unlike
recording artists, however, who want to earn royalties from the sale of their
work, and so do not want users to be able to download it from the Web for free
(yet they can, and do), researchers do want users to download their work for
free (yet they can鈥檛).

So what are researchers to do? Their growing frustration has lately inspired
a wide range of literature-liberation scenarios, from the far-fetched Utopian
(鈥淕ive up submitting your work to non-giveaway journals鈥�) to the frankly
crackpot (鈥淕ive up peer review [refereeing] and journals altogether鈥�) to the
outright cop-out (鈥淪ettle for the public freeing of access to your findings 6 to
12 months after you have published them鈥�).

When print was the only medium of dissemination, there was no alternative to
toll-gated access. The Web era has provided a method of liberating the refereed
research literature online without giving up journals or peer review, and
without violating copyright. This 鈥淪elf-Archiving Initiative鈥� is well within
reach and long overdue.

To free this literature virtually overnight, all its authors need do is to
self-archive their own portion of it online in their institution鈥檚 鈥渆-print鈥�
archive. Free archive-creating software (www.eprints.org) is now available to
make all such institutional e-print archives 鈥渋nteroperable鈥�
(www.openarchives.org), hence 鈥渉arvestable鈥� into one global virtual archive
(http://cite-base.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search).

Free for everyone, everywhere, forever.