the date on which it can make the file(s) public. At the point determined by the embargo, the copy of the document that I uploaded will be made public for everyone to view; it will be open access.
Green open access fulfils several important functions. One of the foremost of these is to address the challenges of digital preservation.19 The impetus for this comes from the history of preservation in the print sphere. Indeed, while it is tempting to think that print is simply more enduring than digital material, this is often only true because sophisticated mechanisms for preserving print have been actively developed (distribution to multiple libraries with temperature- and humidity-controlled environments, for instance).20 Taking this as a cue, there are now many systems designed to protect purely digital scholarly research. These take the same form as research libraries: if digital material is distributed to hundreds of computers at hundreds of libraries worldwide, then we militate against geographically local points of failure. One of the most well-known digital preservation mechanisms is called LOCKSS, which stands for ‘Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe’, a name that embodies this principle. A green deposit of an article is just one further instance where that material is stored somewhere else, reducing the chance of a catastrophic single failure. This also explains why green is not just the opposite of gold. Greenly depositing gold articles further protects them through duplication.
The other function that green OA fulfils is to provide access when a gold option is not available. One of the substantial advantages (or disadvantages in some opinions) of green OA is that there is currently no evidence that it requires a reconfiguration of publishers’ economic models, at least for journals.21 When a publisher wishes to continue their subscription business model but still wants (or needs) to provide open access, green is currently a viable solution. The flip side of this is that, therefore, while green open access helps researchers, it does not help libraries with their costs.22 Green open access is the form mandated by many funders, as shown in the international discussion in Chapter 2.
Green and gold open access constitute the delivery mechanisms for the removal of price barriers to research. On its own, this is called ‘gratis’ OA: material that is free to read but that comes with no
