OK, I'm confused. I could *swear* I remember that RUSQ went open-access about a year ago or thereabouts. There was a blog at http://www.rusq.org where new articles were posted (in fact, that feed is still in my feed reader) but now that URL redirects to Metapress, and my institution has access to precisely one year's worth of content (vol. 50 no. 3 through vol. 51 no. 2). Did they go OA and then change their minds? - Catherine Pellegrino from Bookmarklet

We talked about this here: http://friendfeed.com/lsw... and I was similarly confused, but didn't have the time then to follow up on it. - Catherine Pellegrino

Damn, I was convinced they were OA too. :-( - Deborah Fitchett

i see mention of them going OA back in 2006. did it change when they went online only, i wonder? - holly #ravingfangirl

I just looked at my (print!) copy of vol. 50 no. 4 and there's an editorial about going online-only with the next issue, about MetaPress being the platform for the journal and the archives being housed with JSTOR. It mentions a one-year embargo "since the journal is one of the benefits of RUSA membership," but there's no mention AT ALL of the open access status of the journal. - Catherine Pellegrino

I poked Mike Furlough, and he's asking his colleagues who are editors. I should get an email about it, and will report back when I do. - RepoRat

Thank you! I'm curious to know whether this is a case of "Catherine's memory is clearly faulty" or something entirely else. - Catherine Pellegrino

It seems to me that lots of us *thought* RUSQ would go OA, especially if/when it went paperless--and especially since, y'know, ACRL and LITA have both gone OA with their journals. (Yes, I know for SURE that "benefit of membership" was brought up in LITA when I, and others before me, were proposing OA status. Times do change. Slowly.) I guess RUSA chooses to go its own way. Too bad about that. - Walt Crawford

Just checked the Wayback Machine to confirm my memory of a one-time blog at rusq.org and it's blocked via robots.txt. Curiouser and curiouser. - Catherine Pellegrino from iPod

I remember that it was free online. We canceled our print subscription in response. - JffKrlsn from Android

It looks as though AASL (school libraries) has also gone Gold OA with its (renamed/reinvigorated) scholarly journal. RUSA is becoming an outlier among ALA divisions... [AASL could also make print volumes available with *no* effort, since it's preparing single entire-volume PDFs.] http://www.ala.org/aasl... - Walt Crawford

Hmmm. LLAMA's also made its magazine/journal hybrid Gold OA (using a CC BY license!), and uses OJS to produce it. http://journals.tdl.org/index... - Walt Crawford

But PLA, like RUSA, limits access to members & subscribers. (But PLA makes "three full articles from each issue" available for free online.) Similarly ALCTS. So it's about half and half at this point. Progress, but by no means complete. - Walt Crawford

Yup, they reversed course - decided to go e-only and behind a paywall only. Very odd. - barbara fister

Barbara, can you elaborate on that any? When was the decision to reverse course made? I'm asking because this all went down just before or while I had an article in press with them, which I submitted on the understanding that they were OA, but now they're not, so I'm concerned about what kind of precedent this sets and also what my rights as an author might be. (Yes, I'll check my copyright transfer agreement, as soon as I can find it.) - Catherine Pellegrino

*watches this with curiosity* - lris

http://rusa.ala.org/blog... - holly #ravingfangirl

So, LITA gets it right and RUSA fucks it up. - DJF from Android

can we all rush the comments on that blog post? *g* The retreat from OA is one thing, the pretend-it-didn't-happen is something else. - RepoRat

Google Scholar still links to the old OA version. I mean, the link's broken, but... - Deborah Fitchett

So they did backpedal. Like others, I remember the big deal when they went open (and bragged about it, and a couple of you guys probably celebrated it too). Like some here, I even had that journal feed in my feed reader. Still sitting there. Talk about doing it under the radar. - Angel R. Rivera

I'm going to look into this a little more later today during a conference break, but last night I tried to find a list of the editorial board, to see if there was anyone I knew who I could contact, and I couldn't even find THAT on the MetaPress site. Can anyone track that down? - Catherine Pellegrino from iPod

a quick and not very definitive Google search (RUSQ + OA) brings up notes for past several years saying it was OA. Disappointed that they closed it back down. - Hedgehog

2006-2012 seems to be the length of the experiment? http://www.ala.org/Templat... Now I REALLY wanna know why it went closed again, after a run as long as that. - RepoRat

Here's a link to the 2012-2015 editorial committee: http://www.ala.org/rusa... - Heather

nice find! "RUSA Directory of Rosters" is just... I can't even. Librarians are SUCH librarians. - RepoRat

Maybe it's time for somebody to do a good post or article about the state of OA at ALA. Somebody plan to do that? If not...maybe I will, eventually. - Walt Crawford

Hmmm...*speedials Jambina* - Hedgehog

One of the members of the board works in the office beside me (Heidi). Will send her the Library's Loon's recent post. (much obliged for this, Library Loon) - copystar

Got a tweet into @librarian_kate - Hedgehog

@RR I particularly liked the previous year/next year navigation at the foot of each committee list. So subtle as to be invisible. - Heather

Thank you, everyone, especially to Heather for locating the editorial board (RUSA DIRECTORY OF ROSTERS!!!) and *most* especially to the Library Loon for bringing this to the wider world; I'm going to blog on it later, when I'm back from the conference and have a few more facts at my disposal. My Google Reader feeds indicate that June 2011 was the last issue to have been posted on the blog at rusq.org. It does beg the question: it's one thing for a journal to try OA and decide it doesn't work, but another thing to retroactively "close" content that was previously open. Not a fan. - Catherine Pellegrino

(Also, I think the editorial board didn't come up on a google search because the title of the page is "RUSA Reference & User Svs Quarterly Editorial Board." Unnecessary abbreviation FTL.) - Catherine Pellegrino

In case you haven't seen it, the Library Loon has an update with his/her analysis of the situation here: http://gavialib.com/2012... The comments to that post, and to the Loon's previous post (http://gavialib.com/2012...) are recommended. - Catherine Pellegrino

RUSA past president and incoming RUSQ editor Barry Trott and current RUSQ Editor Diane Zabel comment on the Loon's blog here: http://gavialib.com/2012... Apparently, there was an error in the settings on the MetaPress site that prevented access to volumes of the journal that should have been open; that error has been corrected. I'm still pondering what and how to blog about this. - Catherine Pellegrino

I would encourage you to--one of the things you noted was that you felt that they weren't clear with their authors. If they didn't tell you it was going to be closed for four issues when you believe it was OA, that's concerning to me. I'd like to hear what your process was, what your opinion going forward publishing with them would be. - Hedgehog

Blog the process and the confusion, rather than assigning blame and ascribing motives. - Steele Lawman

Yeah, there definitely won't be any blaming or motive-ascribing. I may take issue with the transparency and ex-post-facto-ness of the decision process, though; I'll have to think about it. - Catherine Pellegrino

Having just read the actual response from the RUSQ editor, I would be hard pressed to follow my own advice. They messed up a setting since September of 2011? The metapress site still implies that one can subscribe to a printed journal for $65/year? They are too timid to use the words "Open Access" anywhere on the metapress site or in their response to the Loon? *Assigns blame, ascribes motives.* BOOOO. - Steele Lawman

It'd just be nice to see some acknowledgement that the intention is for this journal to be OA and remain OA with the one-year or current-year or one-issue or four-issue embargo (that's still not clear to me, because, again, what they say they are doing and what they are actually doing don't really match). I know this isn't anyone's full-time job, but some clarity would be good. - Steele Lawman

Yes, there's several things going on here, one of which is clearly "getting it right." - Catherine Pellegrino

Folks, I'm starting to put together a blog post about this situation, and chances are pretty good that I'm going to link to this thread, because it's an excellent summary of the confusion and the process of resolving that confusion. If anyone's uncomfortable with that, you can edit your comments, or communicate with me privately via DM or email (firstname.lastname at gmail). - Catherine Pellegrino

I'm happy with what I've said here, since it also introduces [some of the] ALA divisions that *have* gone Gold OA. (Steve: I'd argue that "OA with a one-year embargo" is not OA.) - Walt Crawford

Fine by me. - RepoRat

Is that a consensus, that an embargo period nullifies a claim to being Open Access? - Steele Lawman

Link to this thread has been sent to incoming RUSA psident-elect. - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

Okay, so I finally blogged about this here: http://www.spurioustuples.net/... - Catherine Pellegrino

Steve: The difference between Gold OA and Green OA. Definitionally, as far as I know, Gold OA isn't compatible with an embargo period. (Green OA only requires allowing deposit of some form of the approved article in a web-accessible repository.) - Walt Crawford

Thanks, Walt. makes sense. - Steele Lawman

Um, folks? The blog post I wrote, which links to this thread, got mentioned in American Libraries Direct this week, so it's possible that folks have been/will be looking here again. Just wanted to let you know. (Aside: AL Direct! zomg.) - Catherine Pellegrino

The more the merrier. I'm waiting for the first "but you don't all use your Real Names!" troll. - RepoRat

link to the AL Direct: http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/al_dire... - RepoRat

(I only discovered it because there was this hella huge spike in my traffic, and I was all "wtf caused THAT." Because AL Direct goes direct to my trashcan, frankly.) - Catherine Pellegrino

(Psst. You just said that in the thread that the AL Direct readers will be reading...) - Steele Lawman

(I know. It's Friday and I'm punchy. Plenty of time for regrets next week. :P ) - Catherine Pellegrino

(useful market research results: it gets trashed by some recipients. Calling RR for market research survey) - barbara fister from iPhone

(more useful market research results: nearly 100% of the hits I'm seeing are coming from the email version, not the web version. Just FYI.) - Catherine Pellegrino