Discussion with Jean-Claude Guédon, Professor of Comparative Literature, Université de Montréal

Discussion Summary, Prepared by Judith Matz

142nd ARL Membership Meeting
Concurrent Discussions Session
May 16, 2003

Professor Jean-Claude Guédon updated ARL directors on the strategies the Open Society Institute (OSI) is pursuing to advance open access in Eastern Europe, Russia, and China. A member of the Information Sub-Board of OSI’s Board of Directors, Dr. Guédon has been a strong advocate of open access publishing and has played a key role in promoting its growth.

The OSI Information Program is part of the Soros foundations network—a group of autonomous institutions dedicated to facilitating open and democratic societies, in part through promoting innovative information technology projects. In 2001 OSI convened the meeting that created the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), designed to accelerate progress in making research articles freely available on the Internet. OSI supports self-archiving and open access publishing, and it has committed three million U.S. dollars over the next three years in support of open access projects

Dr. Guédon described an area of particular interest to Soros: working with researchers in Eastern European and the former Soviet bloc to encourage them to publish in open access journals. Assistance will be offered to set up servers and publishing platforms, provide hands-on training, and develop publishing models. The intention is to make the publishing platforms OAI compliant so that researchers in these countries will become part of a larger global network. The hope is that after the initial set-up and training, assistance can be provided by expert staff located in Budapest who will travel as necessary to local institutions.

To promote open access journals in Eastern Europe, as well as in China and Russia, Soros is encouraging a more rigorous editorial review and peer review process. OSI has also suggested that publications be bilingual, in the native language and in English. Soros has been creating consortia for libraries in the Third World through eIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) and has recently spun off eIFL as a separate organization to promote better access and licensing terms for its members. There is a tension between eIFL and the BOAI that reflects the conflict between the open access mentality and the licensing mentality.

The next battle, Dr. Guédon believes, will revolve around who controls the evaluation of science. Open access can recreate a much fairer and more useful environment for evaluation and reform the whole system of publication. He mentioned that JSTOR has commented on the difference between what is cited and what is downloaded and that we need a better sense of what is actually used.