Equanimity toward Open Access ETD’s: An initial response to ‘Closing the Deal’ by Hawkins, Kimball and Ives | Free US ETDs (FUSE)

"A provocative new critique of Open Access theses and dissertations is already causing quite a stir within the ETD community. “Closing the Deal: Coercion, Ethics and the Enthusiasms for Open Access” [1] accuses the confederacy of American university administrators, academic librarians, and graduate school personnel with nothing less than graduate student oppression by wantonly distributing theses and dissertations freely over the Internet. The authors — each a Humanities faculty member on a Texas campus — lay 26 charges at the feet of the American ETD community. The alleged offenses range from 'cajoling, arm-twisting and even coercing students into .. surrendering the copyright to their dissertations and theses' to biasing ETD formatting guidelines to 'stack the deck in favor of OA' In their wholesale disapprobation of the ETD community, Hawkins, Kimball and Ives take no prisoners, also censuring: the Association of Research Libraries, accused of encouraging its membership to sell OA to their university administrators using manipulative tactics befitting a high pressure salesman; the commercial dissertation distributor, ProQuest LLC, who allegedly circulates misleading advertising materials erroneously claiming that dissertations are peer-reviewed; and the non-profit academic consortium, Texas Digital Library, for carelessly releasing embargoed dissertations in disregard for their respective authors’ express wishes. In assailing the pernicious practices of Open Access zealots, the authors of 'Closing the Deal' convey considerable cynicism about the intentions of the accused ... Apparently, in the disapproving eyes of Hawkins, Kimball, and Ives, no one in 21st century academe is immune from the scourge of blind and misguided reverence for the cause of Open Access, save the poor students themselves and perhaps a handful of their enlightened faculty advisers. Given such a seething indictment of American ETD policies and practice, who among the OA ETD community would not take offense from the words of Hawkins, Kimball and Ives?  Well, for one, the author of this blog is not offended. Rather, I am grateful to these authors for disturbing the apparent calm and unwarranted complacency in the scholarly communication community. I see this controversial article as a fortunate opportunity to question unexamined assumptions about our ETD publishing practices. The critically important issues of embargo policy and enforcement at the heart of 'Closing the Deal' warrant vigorous discussion and debate. Additionally, the authors’ concern for balance and reason in discussions about scholarly publishing is one I have articulated publicly myself, sometimes at risk of reputation among esteemed colleagues in library scholarly communication circles. Hawkins and her colleagues echo my fear that we librarians may be sacrificing our hard-won trustedness as disinterested information intermediaries in the dizzying rush to herald the Academic Spring ... The admonitions of Hawkins & Co. about ideology’s threat to academic freedom and diversity of choice at institutions of higher learning also resonate with me, even as the responsibilities of my scholarly communication assignments have me marketing OA journals requiring generous CC-BY licenses that I myself prefer to avoid. And finally, I applaud the willingness of these authors to take their fight fearlessly to the heart of the accused’s lair — a highly-ranked, peer reviewed academic library journal that is written, reviewed, and read by the best in the business. Bravo, Hawkins, Kimball and Ives, for your equanimity toward the ETD community. May the responses to your charges be as vigorous and fearless as the JAL article that provokes them.  Yet please understand that this wholehearted appreciation for 'Closing the Deal' does not equate with wholesale acceptance of its arguments. Indeed, among the 26 charges made in the article, I emphatically dispute ten of them because of serious gaps in logic and shortcomings in preparation.  The subset of unsubstantiated charges in 'Closing the Deal' reflects a misunderstanding of copyright principles and an ignorance of the historical underpinnings of American dissertation practice that would seem alarming in university faculty and graduate student advisors. For a reasoned discussion of OA ETDs to take place across campus, our faculty clearly need more education. Moreover, the authors’ gross mischaracterization of librarian’s motivations in encouraging access to materials held in their care reflects a poor understanding of the sanctioned mission of these well-credentialed professionals. The insensitive choice of words, presumably selected more for dramatic effect than for rhetorical precision, are reminiscent of the debates at mid-19th century when new technologies for microfilming and the looming prospect of a major copyright revision threatened those clinging to literary property rights in library-held manuscripts ... Nonetheless, the two-dozen plus charges hurled at the American ETD enterprise in 'Closing the