Last week Aaron Swartz killed himself because of the issue of Open Access. He was facing 35 years in prison for trying give people access to pre-1920s publications e.g. not under copyright. He also had a history of depression which probably played a significant aspect in his decision to kill himself. Obvious not being Aaron makes it hard to determine his exact motivation but his family and friends attribute it to the fact that he was facing years in prison. I was doing to write more about this but Eric at Digging Digitally has done a brilliant job. Check out his post.
And that’s the crux of the problem, and why Open Access is one of the key ethical issues now faced by archaeology. Pay walls and intellectual property barriers carry real, and clearly very oppressive, legal force. I doubt, the SAA, the Archaeological Institute for America (AIA), or the American Anthropological Association (AAA) would want to press for felony charges or long prison terms if someone illegally downloaded a journal article from one of their servers. Nevertheless, Swartz’s case demonstrates that such barriers clearly carry dire legal implications.
There are many excellent reasons to promote Open Access in archaeology, summarized in this recent issue of World Archaeology dedicated to the subject. But the Swartz case helps to highlight another. Professional society reluctance (in the case of the SAA) or outright opposition against Open Access (AIA, AAA) puts many researchers at risk. Many researchers, particularly our colleagues in public, CRM, and contract archaeology or our colleagues struggling as adjunct faculty, either totally lack or regularly lose affiliations with institutions that subscribe to pay-wall resources like JSTOR. Many of these people beg logins from their friends and colleagues lucky enough to have access. Similarly, file-sharing of copyright protected articles is routine. Email lists and other networks regularly see circulation of papers, all under legally dubious circumstances. Essentially, we have a (nearly?) criminalized underclass of researchers who bend and break rules in order to participate in their professional community. It is a perverse travesty that we’ve relegated essential professional communications to an quasi-legal/illegal underground, when we’re supposedly a community dedicated to advancing the public good through the creation of knowledge about the past.
What I would add to this is around the issue of societies and their reluctance/outright opposition to Open Access. I was at the Society of Historical Archaeology’s conference last week and in a panel discussion the issue of access to resources was brought up. Again, the time worn excuse that “we can’t go open access because then no one would join our society was used”. What I then said was, “well, have you polled your members to actually see why they join your society? The SAS polled theirs and found only a small percentage joined because of the journal. Making theirs open access with a rolling wall has no effect on membership (PS SHA make’s their journal open access as well with a 5 year rolling wall).”
What I wanted to say (and what did say later in a heated discussion about it) was, “Are you a fucking society trying to better mankind or fucking publisher in it for profit????” While societies do many great things I am starting to get real tired of them protecting the high salaries of their employees at the expense of the rest of us, when, unlike a for-profit company, they are suppose to be helping us.
Edit Clarification – My original words were not meant as full blown criticism of the SHA. I am very happy with their progress policy towards open access. I am merely using the conversation at the conference to illustrate a general tread I find in conversations about open access e.g. “we can’t go open access because then no one would join our society”. It is a conversation I have often and it simply happen to be the most recent one. It was also the first time, not in the panel (after), that I said such blunt thoughts. Again, all used as a literary device and not meant to imply a great hatred of the SHA.
Doug's Archaeology 
JAN
January 14, 2013
Thank you for taking on this “cause”, which unfortunately, so many are afraid to address for fear of retaliation. I certainly can understand being protective of current research and perhaps would be supportive of a time limit of sorts where published papers are available only to paid subscribers. But these subscriptions tend to be insanely expensive. By and large academics are not “rolling in cash”. Which means that funds which could go to field work or research tend to go to “publishers”. Most writers are not paid for their journal submissions, so very little to none of the revenue generated by the “publishers” goes back towards the research which generated the articles in the first place.
I personally think the issue is more about control than it is about paid membership. Whoever controls information can ultimately profit from it (either economically or “otherwise”.)
Terry Brock
January 17, 2013
Doug, first good to meet you this weekend! Second, I remember this back and forth in the Anti-Racism and SHA forum, and I agree, SHA should probably think about investing in survey of their membership, and why they join. I also think that session made it abundantly clear that they need to survey people who aren’t members to figure out why they don’t join. Certainly, SHA could be more open access with their journal, but I would be hesitant to suggest they are outrightly opposed to it. Considering the fact that they’re a (relatively) large archaeology organization and have as much of their journal available for free on their website as they do is pretty astounding, considering organizations like SAA or AIA don’t at all. At the moment, all SHA issues are free through 2005. Is it perfect? no. But it is a fairly manageable compromise between the traditional view, that was expressed in that meeting, and all out open access. It is also worth noting that the individual who expressed that view is the current, and soon to be outgoing, editor of Historical Archaeology. He was likely defending his turf, in large part because it has been under his tenure (I believe) that Historical Archaeology has gone from not being open at all to becoming freely available online through 2005, and that it has become available on JSTOR (which I know isn’t open. But it’s something). From his perspective, the journal is far more open access than it was six years ago, and making it so is no small accomplishment. These things take time, and we’ll get there eventually, particularly as the society leadership is increasingly made up by people with more progressive views on open access. And we’re getting there. The SHA blog and social media are an example of this movement: trust me, there was some pushback in that we’d be giving everything away for free, but cooler heads prevailed. I’m not suggesting that we stop mentioning the issue, or pushing for more open access, but I do think it is important to consider what SHA has done, how that compares with elsewhere, and the trajectory that we’re on, which I think is towards a more open and inclusive society.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
January 17, 2013
Hi Terry, it was nice to meet you as well. I should say I am very happy with SHA’s stance towards OA (it’s why I mentioned they had a rolling wall). They are easily up there with SAS. Looking at what I wrote I realize I should be more clear about the comment “we can’t go open access because then no one would join our society was used” is what I really have a problem with not the SHA. I will edit to reflect that, and clarify. I completely agree it is pretty astounding what the SHA is going.
Terry Brock
January 17, 2013
ah! Understood. I definitely misunderstood you!!
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
January 17, 2013
nah, just me not being clear. made an edit so hopefully no one else takes it the wrong way. Thanks for commenting and letting me know.
SuccinctBill (@SuccinctBill)
January 18, 2013
I have mixed feelings about the open access issue. Archaeology results and reports created under federal, state, and local regulations should certainly be free. The thousands of CRM reports should be freely distributed for all to read in an easily accessible manner such as Open Access (of course, with redacted site locations).
Research conducted under grants from public institutions or (if willing) private donors should also be freely published and made available to the public. A simple way to accomplish this is by creating a CRM-esque report of your field results and preliminary analysis. This is where things may get complicated for the SHA and SAA because most of their articles are written by academics, grad students, and researchers using public funding. If the societies gave this away for free, there would be a greatly reduced need to pay for the journal, which is what I presume they use most of our registration fee money for (which reminds me, I’ve got to renew my memberships). Registration would remain important for professional credentials though.
Other un-funded research should be the property of the author, who should be able to charge for this info. This includes all the analysis and research conducted long after the grant or CRM project money has been used up. Of course, if you charge too high a price your research won’t reach too many people. This is where Kindle publishing can come in handy.
The societies are afraid because open access would change the way they work. Change can be scary. As far as they’re concerned, archaeology is their livelihood– their claim to authority– that enables them to be experts. But, today, anyone can be an expert online. The SHA and SAA should focus on making sure the folks that write about archaeology demonstrate their expertise rather than worrying about nerdy students getting some journal articles without paying.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
January 18, 2013
“The SHA and SAA should focus on making sure the folks that write about archaeology demonstrate their expertise”- could not agree more.