I wanted to write a little more, because I know at least one person didn’t like that I’d taken down the previous post with the comments. I’m calling this a “last bit,” because I’ve spent a LOT of time this week writing about PhilPapers, mostly to PhilPapers.

I objected to the initial communication about the PP subscription for a number of reasons, but most distressing was beginning with a threat to restrict access on a timeline that was unworkable for most libraries and the theoretical application of the restriction to over 3,000 institutions, most of which probably don’t even have philosophy departments. The restriction timeline showed a lack of awareness of how library budgets operate and I thought the choice to go with no carrots and all stick was a bad idea, particularly since there are easy ways to avoid being hit with that stick. The broad application of the restriction seemed to me a betrayal of the whole purpose of OA scholarship and expected support from institutions that barely participate in the academic philosophical community that uses this resource so heavily. I blogged about it and began an email conversation with David Bourget of PhilPapers.

Over the course of two days, both in communication with me, comments on the blog, and comments elsewhere, David Bourget and David Chalmers of PhilPapers took the concerns of librarians very seriously, revised policies in the light of those concerns, and made it clear to me that there was now no immediate threat of restricted access, not on June 1, July 1, or any time very soon, especially now that they were aware of the budget and fiscal year restrictions on librarians. As an example, I used our own budget process. The fiscal year begins July 1 here, but it’s not until July that I even write the budget report in which I would make a request for any new funds to cover something like this, and it would be quite a while longer before everything was officially in place, and this is at a library with pretty good budgets and philosophy funding. I told them I thought it might be months before some libraries could subscribe, even those that want to as soon as they can.

Moreover, they revised the request to include at most only institutions that offered at least a BA in philosophy, and the messages from Chalmers on the blog and to philosophy professors was that they were especially making the requests from “large universities.” In my second post, I specifically mentioned research universities and better off liberal arts college libraries, and have communicated to PhilPapers that I believe reaching beyond those groups isn’t going to be productive. Philosophy is often poorly funded at smaller regional or branch public universities, for example, even if they happen to have a small philosophy department.

Since Tuesday, I’ve also spent a lot of time writing to PP about libraries and how they work. I’ve also suggested that the point of sales isn’t just to talk about what they need from libraries, but also what they can offer libraries that do subscribe. One example that came up from another librarian who emailed me was improved interaction with link resolvers for those who subscribe, making it much easier to get from citations in PP to other library resources, especially in the many cases where there is no document in the OA repository (e.g., all the book citations).

PP has been a grant funded project created and run by academics, not sales people. They’ve never tried to sell anything or work with libraries, so everyone is new at this. In that light, I think the issues I had with the initial PP email were the result of misunderstandings and miscommunication rather than a sign of ill will or arrogance. I’ve been very pleased at how Bourget has responded to my mostly constructive criticism, and I assume that of others who may be contacting him, and both he and Chalmers seem dedicated to making this work for libraries as best as it can without undue penalties, and especially without any short term penalties that would destroy the good will even of librarians that wanted to participate but couldn’t because of budgeting constraints in a short time period. Their only goal is making PP sustainable, not to harass libraries. Maybe this won’t work, but PP is a heavily used resource among philosophers and has developed a significant amount of valuable content, so it’s worth trying. Besides revising the language on the website, I think they’re preparing another round of communication with librarians that I expect will be quite different in tone and content.

It could be that I’ve been deceived, and that it’s all a clever ruse to get me to change my story for public consumption. I don’t believe it is, and don’t see how anyone would gain by that. On the extremely off chance that I’m wrong, and bad things happen down the road, it’ll be easy enough to respond in kind. Librarians have the power here. They have the power to help support a useful OA resource and keep it viable, or not. Since my criticisms have been addressed and I trust that more development will improve the site for libraries, I’m willing to give it a shot.

As you know from my last post (since removed), PhilPapers is seeking library subscriptions from some institutions to achieve financial sustainability. I had a number of concerns about the initial approach to librarians and the scope of the subscription drive that I communicated on this blog, on the ACRL philosophy discussion group listserv, and through email communication with David Bourget of PhilPapers. David worked quickly and with good grace to address my concerns and those of other librarians to the point where my criticisms are almost nil and I believe PhilPapers will act in good faith to encourage support without alienating librarians. David asked me politely if I would revise the (somewhat aggressive) title of my previous post, as it no longer reflected the PhilPapers stance and could potentially damage the subscription drive that I had already defended in the comments. Instead, I chose to take down the post and write another response.

Let’s begin with PhilPapers, which some librarians might be unfamiliar with. PhilPapers has become a useful, and, in the words of one Princeton philosopher who wrote me, an “essential” tool for contemporary academic philosophers. It attempts to replace the Philosopher’s Index, which, while a useful tool itself, has received a lot of criticism from philosophers over the years (and which has inspired at least one other competitor, the Philosophy Research Index). PhilPapers has always aspired to be more than the Philosopher’s Index ever tried to be, though. In addition to an index of the philosophical literature, it provides a taxonomy of philosophy and an open access archive of philosophical research that constantly grows as the hundreds of philosophers who contribute to it continue to do so. It is the best, if not only, available platform for open access scholarship in philosophy. As such, it deserves the support of the universities that house the majority of academic philosophers.

But as with any open access resource, there’s always the question of money. Some anti-OA folk criticize OA advocates for thinking that information not only wants to be, but can be free. However, outside of a few starry-eyed idealists, nobody really believes that. Open access scholarship should be freely available to all, but it has to be funded somehow. The argument for funding it is that without the profit motive, OA scholarship will be less expensive than the closed access scholarship that libraries have been funding for decades. Initially, the money sometimes comes from grants, as happened with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which also had a library fundraising campaign a few years ago) and with PhilPapers. While grants allow time to develop a product and test its value, they do run out. Such has happened with PhilPapers now. The logical alternative is to seek financial support from university libraries. It’s in the interest of libraries to support OA scholarship because doing so benefits everyone.

Thus, because PhilPapers has shown a great willingness to work with librarians to address our concerns and has revised and clarified its goal of raising subscriptions mostly from larger universities with philosophy programs, because of the great value of PhilPapers to the philosophical community, and because of the inherent value of open access scholarship for scholars and students throughout the world, I believe that libraries, especially those at research universities and better off liberal arts colleges, should subscribe to PhilPapers so that this excellent resource can continue to exist and grow. As the philosophy selector at such a library, I will be subscribing to PhilPapers this summer, after my fiscal year begins, confident that waiting until the time is appropriate for my library won’t bring on the sort of repercussions I was at first concerned about.

My latest column in the LJ Peer to Peer Review is here.

I quoted a German librarian saying he couldn’t get digital articles from U.S. libraries sent as email attachments, and that they had to be printed out, sent by regular mail, then rescanned. Someone emailed me questioning that. I’m assuming he was referring to German copyright law, not American law, but now I don’t know. Anyway, it was partly an example of how copyright law restricts technological advance, which I’ve addressed before. I should have been much clearer about that in the column.