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Issues in Science and Technology
Librarianship |
Winter 2004 |
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DOI:10.5062/F4H9935R |
URLs in this document have been updated. Links enclosed in {curly brackets} have been changed. If a replacement link was located, the new URL was added and the link is active; if a new site could not be identified, the broken link was removed. |
Claudine Arnold Jenda
Agriculture Librarian & Assistant Chair
Reference & Instruction Services
Auburn University Libraries
Jendaca@auburn.edu
Libraries and the scholarly community share a dream of creating a world where scholarly articles are easily available on the Internet to everyone who wants them, without any fees, restrictions or barriers of any kind. What is preventing us from fulfilling such a noble and worthy goal? This paper examines selected case studies that show how libraries and scholars are coping with the science journal crisis. By highlighting responses that are innovative and proactive, this paper hopes to contribute to a general awareness of responses that have the potential for transforming the current scholarly communication process into an open, unimpeded, author-controlled electronic-journal based scholarly communication process.
In this paper, we are especially interested in documenting the ways in which libraries and authors are responding to the serial crisis. We will highlight those initiatives and responses that show how libraries are trying to survive and respond to the continued sale of overpriced science journals. We also list those responses from libraries and authors that are innovative and hold the promise for restoring the scientific journal publication process so that authors, future scholars and libraries are guaranteed easy and unimpeded access to every published scientific paper or monograph.
For centuries, libraries have played a key role in safeguarding everyone's right of free access to information with the belief that an informed citizenry is better empowered to participate in a democratic society and contribute to the social, technological and economic systems of their respective societies. The ability of libraries to foster open access to knowledge for scholarship and research now and in the future is eroded.
In the traditional scholarly journal model that has existed for centuries, see Figure. 1, authors, publishers and libraries as key players worked together in partnership performing key roles in the knowledge cycle that resulted in the production of the scholarly journal which captured for perpetuity research contributions of all scholars. Scientists submit their works for publication to journals so that their works will be widely distributed and reach peers working in the same field who will provide evaluative comments in support of or against the prevailing paradigms that guide a given field at the time (Kuhn 1970).
The authors as creators of papers initiate the whole process by submitting their works to editors of established journals for review and editing leading to the paper production process. The publisher assumes the core functions of marketing and distribution of the finished journal. Libraries are a ready market for the finished journal which is organized into the library collections to be utilized and the content evaluated by an author's peers, who in turn generate more works incorporating results reported in all published work on the field to date. This traditional publication process ends with the publisher taking complete responsibility for the entire work, given the prevalent practice of authors signing away their copyrights for their work to the publisher. It is easy to see that this journal publication model is a self-sustaining author-driven process. The quality of scientific papers and progress made increases dramatically when authors have access to all the published work in a field at a given time.
When commercial publishers continue to charge journal prices at rates that are beyond the budgets of libraries, the knowledge cycle becomes disrupted because only a few libraries can afford to pay the overpriced journals. Authors in turn are no longer exposed to all the key published literature in their field, in a timely manner. Their published works no longer have the benefits of insights from all the published literature. In the sciences, this is a serious omission given that the growth of scientific knowledge results from a careful critical analysis of all published contributions (Kuhn 1970).
From journal price studies by Library Journal (2003) and Harrassowitz (2003), we see that it is only a few European-based Publishers that are responsible for the uncontrollable costs of science journals that are destroying library budgets and disrupting the knowledge cycle.
Cornell University is an example of a library that has recently demonstrated the courage to refuse to buy any more of the journals that are published by one publisher, Elsevier, that routinely increases its journal prices well above inflation rates at substantial profits to the company (Elsevier 2003). In Cornell's case, (Cornell University Library 2003) the journals purchased from Elsevier, although important, made up only 2% of its total journal collections but were worth $1.7 million equivalent to 20% of the journal budget. More libraries need to follow Cornell's lead and engage in wise use of their budgets. Just this week, Hane (2003) reports that Harvard and the University of California system are preparing for similar cuts of Elsevier journals, in an effort to regain control over their libraries' budget(s) and collection building decisions.
The elements involved in drawing up licensing agreements are proactive in nature in that they help shape the nature, formats, accessibility and availability of e-journals. However, the choice to buy journals through consortia is a reactive response to the serials crisis, and as such it just offers libraries a way to survive the current harsh journal marketing forces the best way possible, with no real influence on the scholarly communication process. Consortia are just another way of delaying the inevitable time when commercial publishers will again out-price the collective budgets and buying power of consortia as a whole.
More examples of professional societies that are involved in e-journal and other publishing initiatives include the American Mathematical Society ; Physics Pre-prints; {state academies of sciences}; {E-answers for agricultural experiment station reports}; USAIN/NEH Core historical Literature of Agriculture; and many others. Under OAI guidelines, professionals societies are encouraged to archive their publications themselves, to prevent the commercial publishers from re-entering the knowledge cycle as distributors or aggregators.
There are many other authors who have courageously exercised their right not to serve on editorial boards of over-priced journals. Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP) published by Cambridge University Press was founded by the former editorial board of Elsevier's Journal of Logic Programming when the editors quit working with Elsevier in protest over the overpricing of Journal of Logic Programming.
Commercial publishers have traditionally published research that is primarily publicly funded. Neither authors nor reviewers are paid as a rule. Authors may be billed for page charges for publication. In the past, print publishers made a tangible contribution to the publication through their investment in printing presses, the labor of photo-typesetting, and the distribution of the print journal. The Internet, on the other hand, is largely publicly funded and has superseded traditional printing presses and distribution channels. In addition, the Internet facilitates dissemination of scientific literature to a wider audience, a feature that is consistent with the needs of the scientific community. PloS intends to make their journals freely accessible. Any costs in publishing will be recovered through page charges to the authors, which will usually be included in budgets for grants. PloS Biology and PloS Medicine began publication in October 2003.
' Both PLoS and BioMed Central support the Open Access Initiative, which grew out of a meeting convened by the Open Society Initiative in Budapest in December 2001. The Budapest Open Access Initiative is an international effort to make research articles in all academic fields freely available on the Internet. Supporters of the initiative include researchers, libraries, universities, laboratories, foundations, journals, publishers, and scholarly societies. Scientists have traditionally made their results available without charge. They may benefit from Open Access by opening up their research results to a wider audience. The public gains access to the fruits of research, which they have largely funded and applications of research are facilitated when results are more widely available. Information have-nots are no longer excluded under the Open Access guidelines. The two strategies that the Budapest Open Access Initiative most encourages are self-archiving through deposition of articles in freely available electronic sites and the establishment of open access journals. The Budapest Open Access Initiative web site includes business plans for converting a subscription-based journal to an open access format and also for establishing new open access journals.
Another possibility for scholarly communication on the Internet is to forego the idea of gathering articles in one place and allow authors to post their own articles on web sites at their individual institutions. Endorsements by specific professional societies could be indicated by a society logo.
In March of 2000, the {Tempe principles} were set out as a set of guidelines to aid in the transformation of scholarly publishing. These nine principles include: cost containment for continued access, electronic access, secure archiving, evaluation of quality, protection of copyright and fair use, faculty assignment of copyrights to maintain access, timely publication, an emphasis on quality versus quantity of publications, and privacy of users. As libraries reassess their role in the rapidly changing information world, it is important to keep in mind the ultimate work that librarians perform of preserving information and providing research guidance to that information for our current and future scholars. What librarians do is vital to the information cycle and will be so in the future.
This response is also among some of the best proactive approaches aimed at resolving the science journal crisis. There are similar moves abroad where scientists are fighting to reclaim results of publicly funded research. In the United Kingdom, the library and scientific communities strongly opposed the merger of Elsevier and Harcourt Brace Javanovich in 2001 on the grounds that the merged company will have a monopoly and undue dominance over the science journal market (Meek 2001).
Authors should carefully consider all possible future uses they may wish to reserve for their information needs and the needs of their peers in the field as well as libraries that serve them. With this in mind, authors should engage in the practice of giving some rights away while retaining others. There is a proliferation of alternative copyright agreements now in place, some of which should fit every author's unique needs. The University of Arizona Library {Copyright Resources} provides useful information on copyright basics and researching alternative copyright agreements. Authors should also exercise similar care not to give away their other intellectual property contained in their research work in form of patents, trademarks, and trade secrets.
Copyright laws are reviewed continuously to encompass the changing digital information environment (Okerson 1999). At a minimum, authors will do well to consistently reserve the right to post for free all electronic pre-prints of their papers on their homepage when discussing copyright transfers to journal publishers.
Authors carefully managing their copyrights and intellectual property rights is a single most critical proactive response for helping authors and libraries regain the rights to published works. If all authors were careful to retain their copyrights, there would be no serial crisis.
With the various emerging electronic publishing initiatives, universities need to redefine their tenure and promotion criteria to establish values for digital works produced in non-traditional publication systems.
Revised tenure and promotion guidelines with lessened emphasis on publishing in highly ranked journals, or on number of papers would also be considered an important proactive stance for helping authors and libraries regain the repository of published literature. Unfortunately, we are not familiar with any university that has undertaken a review of its tenure and promotion criteria for the purposes of contributing to open access to scholarly information. Perhaps library administrators should lead discussions in these areas with their provosts, faculty, and university senates.
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Elsevier. 2003. Financial Highlights for the Year Ended 31 December 2002: Reed Elsevier Combined Businesses, Press Release. February 20, 2003. [Online]. Available: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/929869/000120662703000022/press3rd.htm [November 14, 2003].
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