The importance of self-archiving

A reader writes in:

I’m always a bit annoyed/bummed when I see a cool looking brand new paper with an interesting abstract only to find that there is nowhere to get the paper. The journal hasn’t yet released it, the author doesn’t have it on a website, and it’s not on philpapers. It typically means I’ll never come back to it (often I see something in a weekly email I get saying what’s in the journals I like and this is a way I find things to read that aren’t central to my research but that catch my interest, so I look then and there in a moment of useful procrastination or never again). I wish everyone would follow the good advice on the APA blog!

Indeed, I very much encourage everyone to read the APA blog post this reader references. Independent scholars, as well as faculty and students at smaller colleges and universities that lack resources for certain journal subscriptions, can be at a real disadvantage when doing research. Self-archiving published articles on your own website or on philpapers can be a great way of counteracting this, as well as for making your work more accessible to a broader audience. In fact, this reader's comment reminded me that things are even more tricky with books. As a faculty member at a university that now does have good journal access, (which it didn't have in the past), I'm still continually frustrated by how difficult it can be to access many book chapters--which often aren't posted on repositories such as philpapers. Here, I think it is worth remembering that many book publishers do allow you to post 'accepted manuscripts' after certain embargo periods (usually 12-18 months)--so if you published a book chapter a while ago, it's now past the embargo period, and you still haven't self-archived it, now would be a great time to do so!

Comments

[B]

Let me please address this. ALWAYS just write the author an e-mail when you see an abstract and you want to read the paper. I have been doing this for years, and others have done it to me as well. You are legally allowed to share your paper in this way - in standard publication contracts. I do not self-archive much, but I share a lot. Indeed, even before self-archiving was big, I would post people who I discuss in an article, a copy of my article. People are generally appreciative.

[Al]

B, I think that’s very good advice and when I’ve asked someone for a paper they send and usually quickly. But why not just put them on PhilPapers? It takes very little effort (I grant... it takes some! (Much more than sending an email?) and no one is obliged here of course). A lot of students are nervous to email out of the blue and that’s understandable. And I think the same may well be true for people who don’t feel like this is appropriate for whatever reason, be those reasons cultural, feeling in/out crowd, mistakenly believing this is just not done, or whatever. I have a PhD student who is in his 50s - confident, outgoing, had a successful professional career. He had no idea until I told him that it’s OK to email and ask for papers or chapters. So I’m 100% in agreement with your advice, but just to highlight the advice on the APA post, why shouldn’t we all advocate for a lot more self archiving? (I realize you aren’t saying we shouldn’t!)

[R]

Unfortunately not all authors are as willing to share their research via email as B. For instance, I've politely emailed authors to request a copy of their paper and have never heard back. Others have been told it "would not be fair to the journal" to share their article via email see https://twitter.com/saul/status/1266006702060646402 . Plus even if someone is willing to share their work via email, it can take days or weeks to hear back, whereas downloading a self-archived paper is instant. From the author's perspective, I think self-archiving can save time as well, as then you don't need to email your paper to everyone who asks.

[B]

Al
I am hoping my post will be read by the shy ... I do not archive on various sites because it is often in violation of the copyright agreements we sign. I take those seriously because I work on a journal.

[R]

Oops, I phrased things in the wrong way in my previous comment. What I meant to say was that self-archiving can save an author time as then, instead of emailing the author for a copy, people interested in the paper can download it from their website or PhilArchive instead, meaning the author has less emails to answer.

[R]

B, in the contracts I've signed, self-archiving of the accepted, non-typeset article is permitted, though sometimes after an embargo period of up to 2 years. For example, Springer's self-archiving policy allows you to upload your accepted manuscript to your website immediately on acceptance and to an online repository 12 months after publication (https://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/publication-policies/self-archiving-policy ).

[B]

R
Yes I know what the contracts say.
B

[Humanati]

Some journals are fairly strict, and only allow you to post to your website and share the post-review version after a 1 year embargo period. Before then, you're only meant to post to your website and share the pre-review version. If authors are following those sorts of instructions, then it would be understandable for them not to make the paper publicly available straight away, since that would mean posting the pre-review version, which may be of lesser quality than the post-review one. None of this goes against the spirit of what's been said; I agree that for journals that don't have such strict policies, one might as well share the paper straight away for others' benefit.