More on overlay journals

Stevan Harnad, Research Journals Are Already Just Quality Controllers and Certifiers: So What Are "Overlay Journals"? Open Access Archivangelism, November 23, 2006.  

Summary:  The notion of an "Overlay Journal" often unwittingly confuses (1) access-provision with peer-review service-provision, (2) pre-peer-review preprints with peer-reviewed postprints (or posting with publishing), (3) archives (repositories) with journals, or (4) Central Archives/Repositories (CRs) in particular with distributed Institutional Repositories (IRs) in general. Throughout the evolution of research communication -- from On-Paper to On-Line to Open Access -- peer review remains peer review, a journal remains a journal (i.e., a peer-review service-provider and certifier), and texts tagged as "published" by journal X remain texts tagged as published by journal X. All that changes is the access-medium and the degree of accessibility. (And possibly, one day, the cost-recovery model.)

Comment.  These confusions may occur now and then, but the concept of an overlay journal doesn't depend on them.  Hence, we should be careful to clarify rather than dismiss the concept of overlay journals.  They remain important ways to decouple peer review from dissemination and minimize the costs of a peer-reviewed journal.