That’s a much better summary of my presentation that I could have done myself Glad you found it interesting!

One thing I would say is that these are not really ‘rules’ (and I hope I said this during the presentation ). Rather, they are guidelines. For example, there are lots of good websites these days with content below the fold, the key point there is to have the really important stuff at the top of the page; and people will keep clicking (beyond the 3 clicks) if they can ‘scent’ where they are heading.

And you’re right – these guidelines apply to all websites. Good luck with your new website – I’ll be keeping my eye on it!

Cheers!

Holly Mercer reports that the self-archiving rate in library and information science is nearly 50% among librarians (and double the 20% global baseline even among nonlibrarians). Nevertheless, not even all articles for which immediate OA self-archiving has been endorsed by their publishers (c. 58-68%) are yet being self-archived even in library and information science, let alone the over 90% after embargo (or the 100% that can be deposited immediately in Closed Access allowing the semi-automatic eprint-request Button to provide Almost-OA during any embargo).

Among the potential solutions, the most important and effective one is for institutions and funders to mandate self-archiving. (Several library faculties have already taken the intiaitive of doing this.) It is also important to make institutional repository deposit the official mechanism for submitting publications for institutional and national performance review (see Liège model).

One slight correction: Alma Swan’s reported rate of 49% self-archiving was not for total articles; it was just the percentage of authors who said they had self-archived at least once. (And both Alma’s studies and those of others have found that authors are often not sure what they mean when they say they have self-archived!) This too will be self-corrected as self-archiving mandates, with their links to research assessment, grow.