Rah-rah OAA!
I knew about the uproar in the American Anthropological Association over FRPAA, of course. (Short version: the AAA board opposed FRPAA without consulting the membership’s online-publishing arm, which promptly told the board to get stuffed, at which point the board disbanded them. DISBANDED. THEM.) After all, I’m the librarian daughter of an anthropologist.
The online-publishing arm isn’t taking this lying down. Oh, no. There’s an energetic blog. There’s a wiki. There’s T-shirts. There’s talk of a session on open access at the AAA’s national conference—now that’s cojones for you.
I love these folks. They rock. They are my shiny new heroes. I could almost join ALA again just to pull stunts like this. (Almost.) The problem with open access is that we don’t have a glitzy swanky award ceremony to invite these people to and give them little statues.
I’m working on my presentation for this in between hacking at metadata and checking rights on that huge pile of papers, and I’ve already stashed AAA in there (along with Stephen Breckler of the APA) as examples of how you! too! can shoot your society in the collective foot by trying to protect your journal revenue at whatever cost to your society’s membership and its public image. Debate the issue by all means, lay out your worries, ask for feedback and explain the society’s financial options clearly—but don’t insult your readership (actual or potential) the way Breckler did, and don’t split your membership over this!
Because you will lose. My money’s on the OAA against the AAA, all the way. Go heroes go!