Libraries Defend Open Access

aisaac writes "Earlier this year an article in Nature (PDF, subscription required) exposed publishers' plans to equate public access to federally funded research with government censorship and the destruction of peer review. In an open letter last month, Rockefeller University Press castigated the publishers' sock-puppet outfit, PRISM, for using distorting rhetoric in a coordinated PR attack on open access. Now the Association of Research Libraries has released an Issue Brief addressing this PR campaign in more detail. The Issue Brief exposes some of the distortions used to persuade key policy makers that recent gains made by open access scientific publishing pose a danger to peer reviewed scientific research, free markets, and possibly the future of western civilization. As an example of what the publishers backing PRISM hate, consider the wonderfully successful grants policy of the National Institutes of Health, which requires papers based on grant-funded research to be published in PubMed Central."

say what?

[Doppler00]

Is it just me, or am I the only one that read that description and have no idea what the issue is or what it's about? Can someone please re-word it?

Hyperbole?

[MollyB]

pose a danger to peer reviewed scientific research, free markets, and possibly the future of western civilization.

This is a breathtakingly bold projection, muted somewhat (weaseled?) by the word "possibly". Nope, haven't RTFA, but most "Chicken Little" pronouncements seem to fizzle sooner than later. I have even less faith in the power of form letters, which Richard Stallman suggests above. Maybe we should just send nuts?

Re:say what?

[Anonymous Coward]

... You clearly don't have any personal experience with the scientific process. The market does not and will not fund the most valuable research for society. The most valuable research for society comes in two types. First there is pure research which leads to profound advancements many years down the line. There is no money to be made from this, so the market would never touch it. Yet everyone involved in science knows that this type of research has the most long-lasting implications.

Second there are aspects of applied research which do not manifest in a product, but instead teach society something. For example, if several studies are conducted to determine whether or not simple vitamins can treat a serious disease, then the result may be a profound and inexpensive treatment. The market, however, will never fund this because the result of the research is not a marketable product.

Suggesting that the market will somehow fund research when most research of value produces no marketable products is naive at best. Instead, society should be funding far more research than it currently is through governmental means, and I wager it will be funding quite a bit more research as the state of society continues to advance.

Re:say what?

[stranger_to_himself]

The current model for the dissemination of scientific research is that scientists send letters and papers to journals, which are then peer assessed by reviewers assigned by the journal and, if they meet a certain standard, are printed. Journals used to be printed and sent to subscribers, and nobody complained that they had to pay to receive a copy of the journal.

Now journals can put papers online for their subscribers instead of printing, which makes people wonder exactly what the publishers are doing for the money they expect to get. They don't write the articles or pay the authors, and they don't review them or pay the reviewers (I write and review pretty regularly). But this remains the only accepted way to release your research, to appear in a well respected journal. The journals are now trading purely on reputations they have aquired for the standards of the work they accept.

Public Library of Science, as I understand it, is an online repository of research that is open to everybody. There are also several PLoS journals, that appear online and for free and perform most of the functions of the old paper journals and their online equivilants. PLoS is also gaining a good reputation for quality.

Traditional publishers are in trouble because of this, and will inevitably make some rather desperate arguments to preserve their business models, hence the article.

Re:say what?

[speaker of the truth]

The free market has spoken and it says it wants government funds. Oh I'm sorry, you don't want it to be THAT free, do you?

Re:say what?

[MrHanky]

Or perhaps children shouldn't read Ayn Rand before they know the difference between fiction and real life.

Re:say what?

[the eric conspiracy]

Bell Labs was the result of a large regulated monopoly running the national phone system having so much money it was an embarrassment. While Bell Labs did lots of absolutely stunning R&D, there were plenty of other side effects to the economy that were bad as a result of having this monopoly control a critical part of the economy. One of these effects that we are suffering from even today is that the oligopolies that were the result of the Bell breakup are actively hindering the growth of communications technologies in the US - broadband, VoIP (and public ENUM), metro WiFi, and portable cellular.

New milennium (sic) capitalism uses political means to artificially support a business model and short-circuit free market competition. If you can't win by competing, pay off the political process to rig the rules in your favor.

There is nothing, NOTHING new to that process. It has been going on for at least 5 millennia.

Isn't this simple?

[Stu Charlton]

I'm not a scientist, and I had a heck of a time parsing through the summary, but I think I get it now.

1. An old economic model is dying: charging high fees for publishing & distribution of scholarly works
2. A new model is emerging: open, primarily web-based, access to these scholarly works after peer review
3. Publishers are desperate to retain their revenue streams, and will use PR, lobbying, rhetoric, and eventually legal means to stop this trend.
4. Vested interests (those who rely on the reputation of said journals) don't want to change the status quo.

It reads to me that PRISM ~= RIAA, circa 1999. The first salvos began with Napster's release, the first salvos here are beginning with rumblings of OA legislation.

Obviously there could/should be a nominal fee for hard copy redistribution, to manage the infrastructure of a such a press. But, when people can print their own copies with open access, this probably won't be needed.

The *real* economic value, it seems, of these publishers is the "brand reputation" associated with particular journals, which select certain articles for publication. Couldn't this be preserved by viewing these not as publishers, but as mere "content aggregators" of (open access) content? There's value in that, and a business could built on it, I'd think. (e.g. you're reading an example here w/ Slashdot).

Re:say what?

[Anonymous Coward]

But has the free public given its approval to give their money to the free market? I don't think so.

Capitalism is a great system until it buys government influence.

Re:say what?

[porpnorber]

Timescales. If people made investments with 50 or 100 year horizons, the market probably would do some good. In fact, this was arguably one of the positive qualities of monarchy, and dynastic thinking in general. (Of course, one is no more likely to get a good king as a good president, and kings last longer; there are two sides to every coin.)

The only direction I have been able to think of going from where we are now that might bring back some sanity is selling long horizon futures in researchers, either as individuals or perhaps small groups (such as graduating classes from your institution). It's a bit like the xxAA problem; the corporation, fundamentally the middleman in the equation, can't be trusted as the vehicle to set the goals.

The cost of the journals is killing libraries

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't see how the publishers can equate open access with censorship; it's really only saying if we can't get paid to publish this stuff then it must be "censorship." I think open access is a great idea. I was trained as a a librarian, and the increasing costs of serials (journals) for libraries is tapping into the budget--how about $1 million annually and up to $12,500 a year for a single journal for a small library?

It's made even worse that some of journals have to be there for accreditation, or as part of a package deal--it's all going electronic so to get access to this one journal requires an entire database.

Publishers know about things like interlibrary loan, where journal articles are copied (and copyright fees paid) and sent to other libraries, so some have put in requirements that libraries can only make a limited number of copies, or even none at all.

It's so serious libraries have been holding serials cancellation projects, the first ones I heard of were in the late eighties. It's a long and painful process trying to get input from the faculty on what they want to keep, what the publishers are willing to sell, and how much costs are likely to rise versus budgets that are stagnant or even decreasing. The serials are slashed, it's okay for a few years, then it happens again.

The result is a lose-lose for everyone but the publishers; libraries have a smaller and lower quality collection, having to rely more and more on interlibrary loan. Professors and students have to to greater lengths for their research, and more money out of the budget goes to serials. The publishers, meanwhile, keep on bleeding the libraries white.

I'm surprised it's lasted this long without the whole system breaking down--at some point the libraries can't cut anymore or pony up more cash. So open access is coming up and they're crying foul? I say to hell with them.

Re:turkeys voting for Christmas?

[ColdWetDog]

At the moment all my research library does is manage the subscriptions that my University has with journals.

And maintains the building that said journals are housed in. And hires the staff to keep you from walking out the door with the journals, having a party in the cubicles, smoking in the bathroom, or keeping the transients from moving into the library. And argues with IT each Wednesday after the computers freeze up. And argues with the budgeting staff of the University to replace those chairs that supported your great grandfather's butt.

And so on and so forth.

A little caution

[liegeofmelkor]

First, I'll state that I think PRISM is a farce and the government (and the people they represent) have every right to demand access to the works they fund. However, I'd like to introduce a little balance to this discussion. While the tenets behind the movement to open access are simple and obvious, and a general framework for an open access system can be sketched out by any non-expert (evidenced in this forum), the consequences of screwing up in the transition demand caution and a great deal of forethought. The current system, although fostering spiraling prices, is relatively good at ensuring quality, reproducible and generally true work (to the best of the authors' knowledge) gets published. The incidents of researchers fabricating or distorting data is rare enough that it usually makes large headlines in the news. Peer-review is directly responsible for the level of credibility in academic publications. However, the peer-review process itself doesn't weed out fabrications or distortions in data, because researchers doing very specialized experiments could, hypothetically, forge data convincingly enough to fool peers in the field (for a few years at least). The aura of a thorough and organized system (and the fear and stigma of getting caught), however, force the potentially less-than-ethical researchers (a non-trivial fraction of academians seeking recognition and advancement) to police themselves and maintain ethical standards. If even the impression of a less rigorous, less organized system infiltrates the scientific community, it could embolden the more ambitious (for advancement) researchers to lower their ethical standards (some even subconsciously), producing a feedback loop as their less-than-rigorous research enters the field. This would be a HUGE blow to forward progress in research and could take decades to rectify. Granted, this is a low-probability outcome! However, the gov.t isn't known for meticulous foresight and smooth transitions to new business models (neither is the market system for that matter). So, even though I disagree with PRISM, I'm glad assholes like them are out there to slow the progress of the movement. Consider them as a skeptical peer-reviewer. If the open access model is sound (and I think it is), it will come through in the end, and the critiques incorporated from the likes of PRISM will only make it stronger and more rigorous. They're a balancing force, although a malevolent one.

Re:say what?

[symes]

The market does not and will not fund the most valuable research for society

Spot on. Particularly where that research might result cause restrictions to market activity. For example research into the deleterious effects of smoking, etc..

Re:turkeys voting for Christmas?

[azaris]

Electronic journals don't need housing. Back issues are being scanned and made available fast. I don't have to leave my desk to get current journals.

I should consider it rather important to store multiple physical copies of scientific research in libraries throughout the world. There's already an alarming amount of obscure but relevant research from the 19th century and early 20th century that simply hasn't been widely reprinted and is in the danger of becoming folklore because the original manuscripts are so rare. Electronic storage is even less longevous than paper storage, it's not a solution for the ages.

Libraries are like RAID-5 of the research community.

Re:Overdrive. Our libraries come up short.

[Chandon Seldon]

With all due respect to the parent poster and to Mr. Stallman, my job is not to take a stand on DRM.

As a librarian, it absolutely is your ethical/professional responsibility to evaluate the social implications of DRM technology and potentially take a stand on the issue. DRM acceptance has the potential to define the level of access to human knowledge people have. DRM use today has a direct impact on the extent to which libraries can archive information for the future.

The model for libraries has always been that the library actually controls a copy of the book / CD / tape and can lend it to anyone at any time. DRM-encumbered files give the publisher complete control - with a default of "deny access". That default is utterly incompatible with the mission of a public library.