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Scroll down to get to this letter (it is #4) from several heavyweight academics all or all but one of whom are very heavyweight historians including the current and past presidents of the Royal Historical Society. Starts and ends with statements in favour of Open Access. Three features of the Finch recommendations as acted on by the Government are summarised: 1. inadequate monies for APCs leading to administrators having to create rationing systems; 2. researchers publishing in non-compliant international journals being excluded from REF 2020; 3. short para asserting that CC-BY would seriously undermine the integrity of the work scholars produce.

Useful, broad, measured perspective from Felice Levine with a focus on how the OA position might develop in the US "The best current intelligence for where we are in the US is that the US Federal Government is not likely to issue a narrowly tailored policy on OA which would constrain or define business models. It is clear about the value of OA but it has not mandated particular models of OA. Will there be arrogance from US journals towards non-US scholars and their need for OA? The current model (and the AERA parallels most learned societies) provides toll-free links to authors' webpages and institutional archives of publications and online-first publication. If this does not satisfy the requirements, then the author-fee option is still there."

Whether or not you agree with any or all of it, this superbly written 5 page PDF by Colin Jones and Peter Mandler provides a coherent and very comprehensive summary of H&SS concerns about current OA policy in the UK, and its impact. The nine aspects covered are: the gold question; green issues; publishers' business models; universities and gold/green; universities as publication gatekeepers; a way out of rationing; freedom to publish; internationalisation. All set against a backdrop of RHS reiterating its "strong support for widening access to publicly-funded academic work, in forms that sustain peer review and high-quality editorial work."

But if the sciences can do it, why not also the humanities and social sciences? Long, enthusiastic but basically exhortatory piece by Gary F Daught promoting "bright and energetic young scholar" Martin Eve's idea.

RLUK's response is forcefully supportive of the current policy, and firmly dismissive of HSS objections to short embargo periods. But does it sidestep the longer term concerns of learned societies?

Commentary on Martin Eve's step-by-step guide to starting an open-access journal https://www.martineve.com/2012/07/13/starting-an-open-access-journal-a-step-by-step-guide-table-of-contents/.

Abstract of 'field report' in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog : "The Open Library of Humanities is a newly-launched project aiming to provide an ethically sound and sustainable open access model for humanities research. By coordinating the discussion and implementation of a community-grounded approach to academic publishing, OLH aims to create an outlet better able to serve academics, libraries, and the wider research community. Co-founder Martin Eve describes the current "ideas phase" of the project and outlines his vision of where it will go from here."

Yesterday, Research Councils UK confirmed it would back down to the government's view, at least for the next half-decade. Although its policy - to go into effect from 1 April - says 6 and 12 months, in practice RCUK (the umbrella body for the UK's seven funding agencies) would not enforce those embargoes, and would permit 12 and 24 month delays - so long as publishers also offered researchers the option of paying up-front to make their work free immediately, an alternative open-access model ....... In the end, it will be the level of enforcement - rather than the policies themselves - that will drive an open access shift.

Key points: * OASPA recognizes the interests of funders in seeking to maximize access to the results of research funded under their programmes. * OASPA supports the RCUK policy support for gold open access as the preferred model, with additional funds being made available. * OASPA supports the RCUK policy requirement for a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) Licence to be used where Research Council funds are used to meet a gold open access fee. * The APC levels per article that are assumed by the RCUK policy following the Report by the National Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings, are reasonable and in line with the experiences of open access publishers. * Infrastructural challenges exist (e.g. payment mechanisms), and are being addressed by the necessary stakeholders. OASPA is committed to engaging actively with stakeholders to resolve these.

Broad mix of people on the Open Library of Humanities Academic Steering and Advocacy Committee, including Michael Eisen, who co-founded PLOS; and Peter Suber.

The interesting thing about this Times Higher piece is the number of comments and (at the time of posting) the coherence of the comments that counter the main line in the piece.

Extract. Applicable across all fields: "The project leader must guarantee that the research findings are accessible to everyone (Open Access) within six months of publication. In cases where publishing involves parallel publication in open institutional archives, arrangements should be made at the time of publication for open accessibility within six months. The Council may prolong the allowed time period until Open Access or parallel publishing up to 12 months, provided that the project leader can present a clear documentation stating that all possible effort has been made to reach the six-month limit. Until further notice, the Open Access rules apply only to peer-reviewed texts in journals and conference reports, not to monographs and book chapters."

Long feature by Paul Jump (with surprisingly few comments) summarising the UK situation from the standpoint of a well-briefed (and possibly thoroughly lobbied) journalist. Has an OA timeline from 2002, and a section about the Open Library of the Humanities.