Digging Digitally » Fred Limp (SAA President) Responding to Open Access in Archaeology

"Again, thanks to everyone for the thoughtful comments and discussion on my prior post here and elsewhere. I also want to thank Fred Limp, President of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) for taking the time to share his thoughts on the topic, including posting them on this blog. Below are the comments he emailed to me (with permissions to post) ...  While I respectfully disagree with this position, I want to thank Fred for his comments and for taking the issue of Open Access seriously. His comments reflect some of the discussion of the recent Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) meeting noted in Doug’s Archaeology.  I’m looking forward to further, productive, and collaborative discussion on the topic. Perhaps professional societies can find some productive ways forward on the Open Access issue and do more to seek additional public support to help make Open Access financially (more?) feasible. We’ve long taken it for granted that public support only gets cut. Perhaps it is time to see this issue as a way for our field (and other sciences) to make a stronger case for public support by more directly contributing to the common good of public knowledge."