Eschenfelder overall comments

First, I want to begin by saying that there is a lot I like and respect about this book:

a. it pulls together a lot of disparate information about the motivations for and dreams associated with OA
b. in doing so, it provides references to a diverse set of research about the related issues in a very useful way
c. it's pleasurable to read : )
d. it's a book - I've never written one!
e. Willinkson's emphasis on "the access principle" (the principle of increasing and improving access, impact, participation and circulation: pg. 29) instead of a specific tool and or business model is a very useful way to approach the problems that drive the OA movement. Appendix A "10 flavors of OA" is extremely useful.

I will probably assign portions of the book to my class as a good intro to many of the issues associated with OA and the 10 flavors portion emphasizes the different possibilities/business models associated with the end goals (his "access principle")

But I have some complaints about the book:

1. It spans so much territory, that Willinsky can't do justice to all the subtopics he takes on. It values breadth over depth; but depth would be much more interesting in the end. I would have recommended that the book focus on and expand chapters 1-7 and 12.

2. Unsupported claims: The lack of depth in certain sections results in some unsupported claims about how OA will solve this or that problem that undermine the overall effectiveness of his arguments. For example, he claims on pg. 181/182 that the "prospect of even citation indexing's becoming an open access resource, the possibilities of building an integrated and open system of indexing... becomes more feasible." Well, maybe. Yes, the fact that bib information is online and thus harvestable via OAI-PMH makes it more feasible, but it doesn't make commercial/non-profit/library cooperation more likely. He has left out any sort of analysis of the history of interactions between different indexing organizations, their business strategies & what motivations they have to cooperate or not cooperate in this venture. It would have been great if he had included that sort of analysis. Another example is the unsupported claim that OA will improve science journalism (p.g 136). Again, well maybe. Maybe certain journalists will be dilligent and make use of OA articles to improve their stories; but maybe other larger institutional forces like deadlines, editor interests, and limited understandings will mean that they won't.

3. Tech determinism: This book employs largely technological determinist assumptions that OA will cause certain (typically good) things to happen. From a social informatics perspective (my particularly theoretical camp) broad assumptions like these are highly suspicious. While OA may cause certain good things to happen under certain conditions, they won't happen all the time under all conditions. So the real questions are under what (cultural/temporal/economic/etc.) conditions will these things occur?

Willinksy doesn't fall into the trap of assuming OA will necessarily disempower publishers. LIS researchers like Rob Kling and Phil Agre point out that many technologies which we initially hoped would change power structures and empower underpriviledged groups instead tend to reinforce existing power structures. It may be that OA, under one of the 10 flavors presented by Willinsky, will end up reinforcing publishers power instead of moving power to a publisher/author/library cooperative (as suggested in chapter 6)

4. The historical context/openness spin. Willinsky contradicts himself in placing OA in a historical context. In Chapter 1, he argues that OA is part of a larger historical tradition of libraries and scholars maximizing access to materials. He says something about scholars visiting the ancient libraries at Alexandria. But as our very own Madge Klais points out, access to scholarly resources in ancient times was hardly open; rather, it was directly tied to class. If you weren't a gentleman, you couldn't read and you certainly had no business in the Alexandria library - unless it was to wash something. In a much later chapter Willinsky admits that access has long been tied to the politics of reading and who can read. Instead of spinning OA as part of a tradition of openness and access, I think he should have spun it as progress away from historically closed acccess to materials.

Kristin