Human equivalents to microbial HGT : Open Access, Open Data, Open Source, PD, Copyleft, Creative Commons ?

There are many reasons for the microbes not just surviving on this planet for four billion years but also dominating it.

Blockheaded Publishing : "OPEN ACCESS" in all senses

It is a telling example of our debased (and post-religious) moral culture that no reputable reviewer today would ever review a book that was made available free as a 'tract for our time'.

'Review a book offered up free by an author merely to contribute to the collective public debate on important issues, without any thought of personal gain or fame ?'

You're joking aren't you ---- even Thomas Paine charged for his pamphlets !

People who self consciously call themselves "Book Reviewers" - whether professional or amateur - pride themselves on considering all books written without thought of personal gain as likely to be the rambling rantings of almost lunatics, unworthy of serious attention.

(Add here, in defence of their response, the well known words of Samuel Johnson who said anyone who wrote not for money was a blockhead.)

No doubt these "Reviewers"  might even consider the actions of a doctor who freely gives his life to better others' lives, without any thought to personal gain or fame, as also bordering upon the lunatic.

So a serious book freely offered up to tell the tale of a doctor who willing offers up his life for general humanity is somewhat doubly cursed - if it seeks to be seriously reviewed by serious reviewers.

And a serious book, on serious issues, published in serial fashion - as a series of tracts or pamphlets -stands even further outside today's book trade.

For tracts and pamphlets are usually published by being shoved through someone's letter slot and reviewed, it at all, by the person behind that door.

But in George Orwell's day, pamphlets were the 'containers' for almost all the serious thought about the serious issues thrown up by the crisis of the Great Depression - which is why he collected them to stimulate his own writing.

But new young pamphleteers and tractarians are today probably all bloggers ; globally-minded digital pamphleteers no longer content to merely push a few paper pamphlets into mail slots along their own street.

I am not young, but I certainly am one such blogger.

Because I want my tracts read by everybody in the world, of every income group, any hour of the day, and in any language that Google Translator will handle.

I will make printable versions of longer blog posts available to suit those who still prefer print - just as I will do likewise for those who prefer to read longer E-Pub files offline.

But really I think the web browser-based book or pamphlet (aka "the Blog") is the true wave of the present ....

Freemium vs Open Access Tracts vs Open Commensal Publishing

Freemium

Self Published e-books currently has strong connotations that the self-publishing author intends to make money off their work at some point in time.

Partly this connotation is driven by the fact that the best avenues to put self published e-books before the worldwide public (such as Amazon) are all themselves profit-seeking and distributing permanently free e-books will only lose them money rather than make them money.

So they simply won't distribute* self-published work that remains permanently free-to-read.

Because what really keeps afloat this connotation that self-publishing authors seek profit is that it is overwhelmingly true.

The majority of the self-published only appear to embrace a free-to-read ethos because they tend to release the initial books or chapters in a larger work for free - permanently or just for a limited time -  hoping enough readers prove willing to pay good money for the rest of the work.

This is really an ancient version ("loss-leader") of a seemingly 21st century model from the world of apps , freemium : give away the basic app and hope to sell premium features to a sizeable minority of the resulting users.

There is still a form of implicit censorship within all such profit-seeking self publishing, of course.

It is the self-censorship of those who, in seeking profit , tends to write what their potential audience wants to read.

Open Access to closed Group-Think : academia's closed commensality

Still at least part of most self-published world is free-to-read , while the author and publisher retain copyright control ---- so how then is this really different from the academic world's copyright-retaining Open Access free-to-read approach ?

Well for a start, and tellingly, self-publishing is detested by the academic priesthood .

This is because it is truly open to all : all would-be-authors and most frighteningly , all would-be-ideas.

Open Access : to the closed world of academic group-think

Amazon's self publishing division only rarely refuses to carry a book because of its content and no group of fellow authors (self-published or otherwise) ever sits in judgement deciding whether a self-published work should be allowed to be published.

Ultimately there is peer review --  but of an ancient , cumulative and permanent sort.

This peer review can ensure an author never sells a book , other than to their mother , or it turns a book into an enduring classic that is taught in schools, worldwide, for centuries to come.

Because , unlike in the cosseted and closeted world of the scholar the reviews of their fellow authors (peers) , along with those of ordinary readers, do indeed come - in spades, but in public , no holds barred - and only after that initial independent publication.

Musical producers - to this very day - do not bring their new work before their fellow peers on Broadway or the West End and beg them to allow them to bring their new musical out in competition with the musicals currently running.

And until the 1950s, nor did scholars.

They could independently publish via a commercial for-profit publishers - in mainstream magazines or in books - and yet have that work evaluated formally by their peers before they got tenure or a grant.

They are still free to write books , or blog or  even post articles on non-peer reviewed open access depositories --- but this time-consuming work will not count towards receiving peer-reviewed promotions or getting peer-reviewed grants --- no matter how popular or useful this work may be.

Advising a President counts - inside this academic Beltway - far less than publishing me-too articles in a specialized journal that even the few specialists in that sub-field rarely read extensively.

Today , Socrates and Plato would need to have a PhD, an academic position (in practise tenure, and at a well known research university) and have their work pre-approved by peers in their sub-field before it could be published in an scholarly journal or university press.

Only then would it be taken seriously by academics.

The days of untutored longshoremen offering up their thoughts on moral philosophy and being taken seriously are long gone.

In earlier times, before peer-review hardened into dogma (for largely atheist academics !), longshoreman Eric Hoffer's THE TRUE BELIEVER sold more copies than 99.99% of all professors in history have ever sold of their work.

Academics - precisely because of this case-hardened procedure of peer-review - can proclaim their peer pre-approved 'bold' thoughts with the reassurance no public mob or mob of university deans will try to lynch them.

Their peer-reviewed published thoughts might seem bold , but only bold within a paradigm that is consensually held by most of their fellow practitioners around the world.

A US Senator outraged by any such article can't get any traction - any academic expert he consults , from far right to far left , is puzzled : the article seems bold but well within the mainstream of that discipline -- what's the Senator's problem ?

Academic work then , with rare bold paradigm-breaking exceptions , is really less pamphleteering and more Tract writing.

It can appear bold and even bitingly brutal but it works within a consensus and for all its criticisms of that consensus, seeks merely to strengthen it not destroy it.

So let it be understood ,when I call them Tracts with a capital "T" , I refer explicitly to the TRACTS FOR THE TIMES , produced by what is now known as the Oxford Movement -- highly critical but always within the orthodoxy of their own sub grouping of the Anglican church.

Open Commensal Publishing or Pamphleteering

If the commercial author is restrained to write only what their profit-seeking publisher thinks will sell well , their competitor the self-publishing profit-seeking author is also restrained by what they think the audience wants to buy.

Similarly, the Open Access academic author is restrained to reserve their 'best orthodox' thoughts for peer review publication and direct their wildest but perhaps most honest thoughts to something dashed off in their personal academic blog.

(Where it might be wider read than any of their articles in top peer-reviewed journals that each were the product of three years of very hard slogging !)

But Open Commensal Publishing is today's digital pamphleteer, at least as George Orwell understood that term.

At its very best, it can be unrestrained by 'what the commercial publisher, general public or academic peers wants to hear' and instead it can deliver some new - badly needed - insights that would never have made it past those three filtering gatekeepers.

I hope to be a small part of that process...

___________

(* This could change if Amazon convinced enough such authors (who wish their work to be permanently free-to-read and yet to remain within these commercial distribution channels) to allow Amazon to sell subject-related ads intended to be displayed at the beginning, back and middle of their e-book, each ad subject to the author's prior approval. But I digress.)

Religious to take up Liberative Technology to match Liberation Theology ?

Don't hold your breath !

Religious bodies have always tried hard to spread their faith by producing free tracts and cheap longer works.

But now taking up the moral obligation of adopting OPEN ACCESS serials and free digital downloads of e-books allow the message to go forth to the entire world --- without consuming scarce religious dollars that might be better spent helping the weakest in society meet their physical needs.

It always takes a very few religious visionaries in every generation to first see and seize the religious advantages of the latest advances in communication and transportation technology --- with the great mass of the religious workers laggardly following along much later.

So now - in the 21st century - which religious group will be the first to truly and embrace welcome the advent of digital religious material and which will be merely content to remain behind a John Wayne circle of wagons to retain their dwindling flock ?

If selfless AGAPE has any real meaning , why aren't all religious publications also available via OPEN ACCESS ?

Money never grow on trees , even in Jesus's day, so printed on paper religious periodical and books will always cost much to manufacture and to ship about and it is only fair that their readers bear some of those costs.

But why not routinely make available the digital versions of the religious serials free as OPEN ACCESS journals and why not make the online versions of print books available as free downloadable e-books ?

Instead many successful religious authors can gain a good deal of personal wealth from their writing and speaking - as do their publishers and speakers' bureaus.

The books might talk much of selfless AGAPE and of charity but their authors fail to walk their own talk.

Religion , far from being too remote and too above the world is , in fact , too much in the world.

Religion is too much in the private sector, too much in the part of the world consumed only with making money - more and more and more money being seen as better and ever better still.

If you've checked out your nation's public sector lately, you will find that public servants also fully expect to have bosses' salaries and benefits.

The values of the private money-making-in-the-temple world has also invaded the public sector and charity/non-profit sectors.

No longer are hospitals run by charitable religious orders - even those 'non-profits' called charities have executive directors pulling down big coin and as likely as not to move on in a few years for a better paying job as a bank VP.

No more is your local library led by a head librarian - they are now called the CEO of the Library and the traditional patrons have all been re-booted as consumers.

Religion publishing needs to look to the world of academic and scientific publishing - with a few caveats

Academics and scientists may not make bank CEO money but they are hardly poor.

Even in the non-tenured world, they do much better than minimum wage workers and  even there the work gives a much higher social status and is far less physically and emotionally demanding than cleaning offices and hotel rooms.

The bulk of academics receive generously adequate salaries, benefits, pensions and their research is almost entirely paid (at least in terms of money and material) by government grants and university aid-in-kind.

Why seek direct author's money for a project where the direct costs were paid for by the public taxpayer ?

 And where the indirect monetary benefits for the author will come away , like bread cast upon waters , in the form of things like an increased number of citations .

Eventually leading to increased academic credibility and thus gaining things like tenure and full professorships,  as well as quicker access to bigger research grants ?

So when the academic come to publish, many seek out OPEN ACCESS journals where the knowledge they have gained is truly added to the global pool of knowledge and not just limited to rich institutions in rich nations.

Religious serials should follow suit.

But scholarly publishing and university presses haven't become so altruistic yet.

One can see why.

The learned societies and university presses are too busy struggling with ever more limited funds to try and produce ever more hardcover books that then sell ever less copies (maybe 300 copies worldwide if they are lucky) .

Just so their harried authors can finally pass muster before tenure committees.

Tenure committees are hardly in the business of increasing academic cum intellectual competition and so (in 2014 !) still demand costly hardcover books for tenure consideration.

They disdain the scholarly book world's equivalent of scholarly OPEN ACCESS journals.

That would see university presses routinely offering the worldwide digital distribution of free ebook versions of those hardcover monographs, so that poor scholars in poor nations can gain equal access to the independent knowledge expensively added by PhD candidates.

Perhaps if a few more - and bigger - university presses took this idea up , it might just embarrass religious bodies and authors to do the same.

I can dream , can't I ...

CBS , ABC , NBC , CTV , the web version of the Guardian newspaper and the Metro print newspaper : OPEN ACCESS ?

If 'OPEN ACCESS' means that one needn't pay to read, see or hear the contents of a serial or periodical , then it is an approach to journalism that is in much much wider general application than usually appreciated.


Almost all blogs of course fit this model --- either totally free or free-to-read but 'supported' by ads that the reader is free to ignore.

Just the same way as much of public and commercial 'over the air' Radio and TV has always worked.

Rename OPEN ACCESS as 'controlled circulation' newspapers and magazines and we see it deployed for the world-wide free commuter newspaper The Metro and in many locally oriented consumer or business magazines.

Many newspaper and magazines run their website editions the same way : 'supported' by ads the online reader can freely ignore.

But all these media present information - or entertainment - in relatively small chunks ,with the ads mostly coming before or after each chunk - rather than within it.

Think of the TV model of drama - with ads coming along at every seven minute mark.

But films, plays or concerts and books don't typically work this way.

Yes , in the 1890s , one found lots of ads for cocoa and soap etc in the beginning and end inside cover pages of otherwise conventional books, and Europe had a long tradition of ads at the beginnings of each movie 'program'.

But generally a 'free' model for books (or film) has never become conventional in the way it has for over-the-air radio and TV or for many print or web periodicals.

Free books are usually seen as worthless long ads for the author's money-making game and never get reviewed.

Genuinely non-profitseeking books are usually only produced by authors connected to a religious or political movement and so also dismissed as mere 'Tracts'.

Left Wing or Right Wing, it doesn't matter : all book reviewers seem to think that authors who don't charge for their books are mere blockheads.

Even in the age of costless (to author or reader) e-books, this tired bromide still holds a grip on their minds.

So on page 24 of your favourite daily rag, the TV critic can be found waxing about a (free) ITV documentary ( say on the many Swedish wartime generals seen as sympathetic to Hitler) that she greatly enjoyed.

But on page 26 , the book reviewer would not be caught dead reviewing the free ebook that the TV documentary was based upon.

Stupidity and rigidity : its a funny thing....

Worldwide digital deliver of basics : mix, mash and re-assemble at home ?

A friend asked how my idea of digital delivery of pre-imposed PDF 'offprints' meshed with the recent resurgence of cassette music.

Fits like a key to a lock !

Call it the Edward Snowden Effect.

Now that we have it confirmed that the powerful in this world have their claws firmly in the digital world , it makes sense to look again at older lower tech (but still widely available) versions of high technology.

Computer printer/scanners , cell phones with still and motion cameras, cassette and DVD/CD recorders put together with common and cheap production software allow us little people the best of both worlds.

Digitally the raw data can be sent digitally by the internet or by finger USB sticks around the world cheaply and quickly.

Then the various end users can assemble it together --- or mix and mash it up and put it in a low tech physical form and give it an unique homemade cover, individualizing it.

So the mix tape of favourite songs by many different artists.

The fan genre fiction anthology of best short stories and novelletes of many authors.

Looking again at the raw data from a scientific article with this end user coming to very different conclusions from the original authors.

On and on and on ....

Is "digital-only" the future of OPEN ACCESS journals - or are pre-imposed PDFs of feature articles the printed 'offprints' of tomorrow ?

A serial that is OPEN ACCESS (the ponderous academic term for what you and I, the little people , would be content to simply call "free-to-read" magazines) can hardly afford to provide endless amounts of mailed out printed "offprints" of its longer "feature" articles when it has *little or no income -- so what is the best solution ?

(*Charging - rather than paying - an author to publish their article can only be justified in academia , where there is an expensive (because labour-intensive) process of peer-reviewing articles before they are published.)

Both authors and readers sometimes rather like having a printed out version of feature articles to carry about.

The quick and dirty PDF offprint is free to email worldwide and the end reader pays only for the computer paper and ink to print it out.

But as conventionally printed out on A4 or letter sized pages, a long feature article is a pain to read.

The endless pages of overly-wide lines of text confounding centuries of typography best practises and it still isn't really "printed" in the sense we think journals or books are printed.

I much prefer the fiction-bound *A5 variant (based upon four print pages roughly 8.5 inch tall by 5.5 inch wide on each single letter sized sheet) of the 19th century story paper or feuilleton.

 Simply by folding the sheets of paper and re-arranging the page order ("imposing") allowed narrower columns of text reading correctly from the front cover to the back cover.

And : the friction of folded page on page holds it all together, much as conventional newspapers hang together without staple binding.

Pre-imposing the conventional PDF is easily done with cheap or free software (I like Cheap Impostor myself) and the end user needs simply to access the increasingly common office duplex computer printer to make up a little chapbook for the article in one go.

Or , do it at home in two stages on old fashioned simplex computer printers.

Presto --- Bob is your auntie's live-in lover ...

(*Truth be told , I really prefer A6 sized books myself - fits (hides) in any pocket, attractive to read , but until A5 computer paper is readily available I doubt many readers have access to the high quality blade paper cutters needed to make the idea do-able !)