Tiptoeing Toward the Tipping Point | Peer to Peer Review

"The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has done academic librarians a huge favor. When it publicly got behind the Research Works Act, it accomplished something librarians have been trying to do for decades. It turned a lot of scholars into open access activists....we have suddenly taken a nice hop, if not a great leap, forward. Whoever wrote the AAP statement supporting the bill deserves a few valentines from us, because it managed to push buttons we [librarians] had so far been unable to reach....Perhaps scholars were jarred by the association’s indignation about the “unauthorized free public dissemination of journal articles.” Hold on a minute. Isn’t that what journal articles are for, to disseminate ideas? How can it be unauthorized if the granting agency expects it? And what’s wrong with free? It’s not like researchers actually pay for the articles they use. But it’s the rest of that sentence that is real genius. The AAP lays claim to “producing” the research they publish. Whoa, stand back. Things could get a little ugly...."