First off, if you haven’t been paying attention to everything happening concerning Bentham’s open access journals, head over to this post by Peter Suber and get caught up.
So here’s the big question: Do we leave the links to Bentham’s OA journals turned on, or do we turn them off?
If we do turn off the direct links the journals will still be accessible through the Directory of Open Access Journals (at least for now — one index has already pulled Bentham titles), but it won’t appear as if we’re endorsing the content.
But are we endorsing content by simply providing people with access? The first librarian I worked for would have said a resounding “No!” Her argument was that it’s up to our patrons to decide what iformation they will or will not trust and our job was to provide access to anything they wanted, so long as it wasn’t illegal or out of our budget. By her criteria, links to the Bentham journals should be provided. Unethical does not equal illegal, and toggling a switch in our link resolver only costs a couple of seconds, tops.
On the other hand, all libraries make some distinction between items that belong in the collection and those that do not. Many libraries have a few Scientology books on the shelves, for example, but draw the line at adding every item from the annual gift boxes sent out by that group.
One journal within Bentham’s stable was proven to have a faulty peer review process on one occasion. Their solicitation methods leave something to be desired. Does any of this necessarily mean that individual articles within their journals are lacking in worthwhile information? No. Credibility? Quite possibly. Will our students have any idea about the potential lack of credibility? Probably not, unless we tell them. I’d be surprised if very many faculty even know about this.
As I see it, we have three options: 1) leave the links as-is, 2) add a statement referencing the possible credibility difficulties, or 3) remove the direct links entirely. I don’t know yet which we’ll choose.
