[Ecommerce] [Fwd: [SOAN] SPARC Open Access Newsletter, 4/2/04]
Manon Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org
Fri Apr 2 10:36:10 2004
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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Universities and rising journal prices
"In late 2003 major universities started announcing large-scale
cancellations. More, they accompanied these decisions with public
statements denouncing publisher pricing practices as unsustainable and
inconsistent with the mission of science and scholarship, and calling on
all academic stakeholders to join in building sustainable and compatible
alternatives"
List at:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/lists.htm#actions
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Manon Anne Ress
Consumer Project on Technology
www.cptech.org
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
manon.ress@cptech.org, voice: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176
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Date: Fri, 02 Apr 2004 01:57:51 -0500
From: Peter Suber <peters@earlham.edu>
Subject: [SOAN] SPARC Open Access Newsletter, 4/2/04
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Welcome to the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #72
April 2, 2004
Read this issue online
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/04-02-04.htm
University actions against high journal prices
For at least three decades universities have struggled with the problem of
rising journal prices. Prices have risen faster than inflation since the
1970's, and four times faster since 1986. Because this rate greatly
outpaced the growth of library budgets, it was obvious that it could not
continue for much longer. But it was not obvious how it would end. Even
though libraries had responded by selectively cancelling subscriptions and
cutting into their book budgets, these incremental actions merely postponed
the inevitable large-scale responses to reclaim control over their budgets
and address the deeper problem. In late 2003 major universities started
announcing large-scale cancellations. More, they accompanied these
decisions with public statements denouncing publisher pricing practices as
unsustainable and inconsistent with the mission of science and scholarship,
and calling on all academic stakeholders to join in building sustainable
and compatible alternatives.
We've all heard about the major actions, at schools like Cornell, Duke,
Harvard, and Stanford. But to understand what's been going on, we need to
see a more comprehensive account. I've put together this list of actions
by U.S. universities since the fall of 2003, with enough links for those
who want to read further and enough detail for those who don't.
Now that I've assembled the list, I've put a version on my page of lists
where I plan to keep it up to date.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/lists.htm#actions
The list is in chronological order, starting in the fall of 2003. There
are earlier actions, but they do not seem to be part of the current wave of
cancellations and public statements. As I learn about earlier actions, and
actions outside the U.S., I will consider adding them to the web version of
the list. I'd appreciate any additions or corrections.
It's notable how many of the university actions are accompanied by public
statements. This is not library business as usual. This is direct action
and self-conscious participation in a wider campaign. It's notable how
often Elsevier is mentioned by name. It's not the only large, commercial
publisher charging unbearable prices, but most universities on the list
single it out as the worst offender. It's notable how many of the public
statement go out of their way to say that the problem is rapidly rising
prices, not tight library budgets, even while conceding that budgets have
been tight. It's notable how many of the public statements protest
Elsevier's negotiating tactics, not just its prices, bundling policies, and
licensing terms.
It's notable how many of the public statements mention the need to
cultivate alternative forms of scholarly communication, and open access in
particular, as part of the overall solution. It's notable how many
recommend that faculty withhold their labor as authors, referees, and
editors from journals that aggravate the problem rather than advance the
solution. It's notable how often faculty were persuaded to endorse the
cancellations despite the harm it does to their research projects and
careers. It's notable how often faculty, librarians, and administrators
(and at Berkeley, also graduate students) agreed on their long-term
interest (in a better publishing system and better journals forever) and
put it ahead of their short-term interest (journals next year).
These actions show anger, not just businesslike responses to hard
bargaining. They belie Elsevier's claim that most cancellations merely
eliminate duplicates or eliminate print in favor of electronic
subscriptions. They show a crisis at elite research universities with
large budgets. From this we must infer a graver and more widespread
problems at less affluent institutions, even if they is less visible, and a
large impediment to science itself represented by the access barriers
growing at every level of higher education. Finally, each university
action, especially if accompanied by a public statement, gives courage to
the next university making the difficult decision to balance current access
against long-term solutions. The evidence that they give courage lies in
the way that the later public statements cite the earlier ones. If your
campus is considering radical action, it's not alone.
Here's the list:
* University of California at Berkeley: Journal Prices and Scholarly
Communication, memorandum to the Academic Senate Faculty from Thomas
Leonard, University Librarian, and Anthony Newcomb and Elaine Tennant,
co-chairs of the Academic Senate Library Committee, September 4, 2003. The
memorandum contains an introduction by Robert M. Berdahl, Chancellor.
http://mossberg.berkeley.edu/calmail/display_message.asp?d=3D9/4/2003&s=3D1=
01
Summary: The University cancelled an undisclosed number of journals. It
emphasized that the problem was runaway journal prices, not the library
budget: "Berkeley will continue to face this runaway serials pricing even
after the present budget crisis is over." Recommendations: "Faculty need to
become aware of the pricing policies of journals (including commercial
electronic journals) in their fields....Submit papers to quality journals
that have reasonable pricing practices. Modify any contract you sign with a
commercial publisher to ensure that you retain the rights to use your work
as you see fit, including posting it to a public archive. Consider
declining offers to review for unreasonably expensive journals and to serve
on their editorial boards....Make changes in scholarly communication a
recurring topic at departmental meetings. Consider taking over the
publication and distribution of research within your scholarly community.
This has already begun at Berkeley, particularly with our colleagues in the
Sciences and the Social Sciences....Encourage your professional
associations to maintain reasonable prices for scholarship and to establish
access terms that are friendly to faculty and other users....The appearance
of unconscionable pricing for academic journals...is a problem that has
come upon the academy suddenly and has now reached crisis proportions. We
will have no one to blame but ourselves if we do not begin to address it at
once."
Public statement by the Berkeley Graduate Assembly on the pricing crisis
and journal cancellations, September 15, 2003.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/Collections/faq.html
"The success of alternate models requires awareness on the part of faculty
and students of the problems inherent in the current model. The Graduate
Assembly calls on faculty, administrators, and graduate students to support
a significant culture change in academia; we must create an environment in
which faculty and students can choose to publish their cutting-edge
research outside the standard academic publishing industry."
Also see the Berkeley library's web site with background information on the
problem and more detail on the Berkeley response.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/Collections/
* University of California at Santa Cruz: Resolution on ties with Elsevier
Journals, adopted by the Committee on the Library and sent to the Faculty
Senate, October 24, 2003.
http://senate.ucsc.edu/col/res.1405.pdf
Summary: Elsevier journals cost 50% of the UC online serials budget but
attracted only 25% of the usage. Elsevier profits rose 26% the previous
year. Elsevier has been inflexible in negotiations. Taking the University
of California system in its entirety, 10-15% of Elsevier content was
written by UC faculty, 1,000 UC faculty serve on Elsevier editorial boards,
and 150 serve as senior editors. The resolution recommends using the
California Digital Library, the related eScholarship Repository, and
peer-reviewed OA journals from PLoS and BMC. It urges faculty to retain
copyright, the right of postprint archiving, and the right to distribute
copies of their work to their classes. "Therefore, the UCSC Academic Senate
resolves to call upon its tenured members to give serious and careful
consideration to cutting their ties with Elsevier: no longer submitting
papers to Elsevier journals, refusing to referee the submissions of others,
and relinquishing editorial posts. The Senate also calls upon its Committee
on Academic Personnel to recognize that some faculty may choose not to
submit papers to Elsevier journals even when those journals are highly
ranked. Faculty choosing to follow the advice of this resolution should not
be penalized."
* University of California at San Francisco: Challenges to Sustaining
Subscriptions for Scholarly Publications, memorandum to all UCSF faculty
from Karen Butter, the University Librarian, and Leonard Zegans and David
Rempel, co-chairs of the Committee on Library, November 1 2003.
http://www.ucsf.edu/senate/2003-2004/ASO-11-01-03-Publications.pdf
Summary: The memorandum cites many of the same numbers and complaints as
the Santa Cruz resolution (above). While singling out Elsevier it also
generalizes that many commercial publishers are using unsustainable
business models. "The Committee suggests that all UC faculty consider
alternatives to publishing in and editing Elsevier journals. New
initiatives, such as Public Library of Science and BioMed Central, promise
high-quality peer-reviewed content at affordable prices. The Committee also
suggests that faculty consider taking action by retaining certain
intellectual property rights, such as including the right to post their
work with an institutional repository....Therefore, should the negotiations
with Elsevier fail, the Committee on Library strongly recommends that
members of the UCSF faculty give serious and careful consideration to their
association with Elsevier and consider the following actions: cease
submission of papers to Elsevier journals, refuse to referee the
submissions of others, and relinquish editorial posts. We would encourage
any UCSF faculty who elect to alter their relationship with an Elsevier
journal to notify the journal of their reason for doing so. Authors may
also consider crossing out the provision in a standard publication contract
that gives exclusive ownership of a published article to the publisher and
thereby retain the right to publish the work in an electronic medium (e.g.
UC's eScholarship Repository or others.)"
* Harvard University: Letter to the Harvard faculty from Sidney Verba,
Director of the University Library, December 9, 2003.
http://hul.harvard.edu/letter040101.html
Summary: The letter announces Elsevier cancellations, which took effect
January 1, 2004. The cancellations were "driven not only by current
financial realities, but also =97and perhaps more importantly=97 by the nee=
d to
reassert control over our collections and to encourage new models for
research publication at Harvard....Elsevier journals are by far the most
expensive....Elsevier's 2004 contract proposal to NERL was not responsive
to Harvard's objectives....Of greatest concern to the Digital Acquisitions
Committee and to the University Library Council was the lack of any option
by which Harvard could prune its holdings and reduce its level of spending.
Libraries wishing to cancel subscriptions could do so, but only by
incurring steeply increased fees that obliterate any potential savings
=97while Elsevier's revenues continued to rise....Toward this end, we have
foregone the NERL Elsevier license in 2004 in order to regain control over
Harvard library collections in a manner that responds to the University's
academic programs. Instead, the libraries will purchase online access to
Elsevier journals individually and selectively....Declining the bundled
agreement and intentionally reducing our outlay for Elsevier titles will
ultimately give us the ability to respond to the marketplace unfettered by
such artificial constraints....We believe this action can be a springboard
for a vigorous and sustained effort to foster new models of research
publication at Harvard. This effort could take many forms, all of which
will require the active involvement of Harvard's research community. On
many levels, Harvard is changing the ways in which it does business."
Jeffrey Aguero, Libraries to Cut Academic Journals, Harvard Crimson,
November 24, 2003.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=3D353513
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2003_11_23_fosblogarchive.html#a10696988=
8040472915
Anon., Libraries take a stand, Harvard University Gazette, Feburary 5,
2004, p.10-11.
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/02.05/10-libraries.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_01_fosblogarchive.html#a10760050=
2234106290
* Cornell University: Resolution regarding the University Library's
Policies on Serials Acquisitions, with Special Reference to Negotiations
with Elsevier, adopted by the Faculty Senate, December 17, 2003.
http://www.library.cornell.edu/scholarlycomm/resolution.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2003_12_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10723001=
8158182985
Summary: "At Cornell, Ithaca campus library budgets for materials
increased by 149% during [the period 1986-2001], but the number of serials
titles purchased increased by only 5% =97at a time when the number of seria=
ls
published increased by approximately 138%....Over the last decade
Elsevier's price increases have often been over 10% and occasionally over
20% on a year to year basis....The [Elsevier] contract has been priced as a
'bundle,' that is, in such a way that, if the library cancels any of the
Elsevier journals it currently subscribes to, the pricing of the other
individual journals the library chooses to keep increases substantially.
(The actual process is somewhat more complicated than this, but this is the
end result.) Because the prices of the journals that are retained greatly
increase when others are cancelled, the only way to achieve any real
savings is to cancel a great many journals....The library, in consultation
with affected faculty, has identified several hundred Elsevier journals for
cancellation at the end of 2003....[T]he University Faculty Senate endorses
the library's decision to withdraw from Elsevier's bundled pricing plan and
undertake selective cancellation of Elsevier journals....Recognizing that
the cost of Elsevier journals in particular is radically out of proportion
with the importance of those journals to the library's serials collection
(measured both in terms of the proportion of the total collection they
represent and in terms of their use by and value to faculty and students),
the University Faculty Senate encourages the library to seek in the near
term, in consultation with the faculty, to reduce its expenditures on
Elsevier journals to no more than 15% of its total annual serials
acquisitions expenditures (from in excess of 20% in 2003)....Recognizing
that the increasing control by large commercial publishers over the
publication and distribution of the faculty's scholarship and research
threatens to undermine core academic values promoting broad and rapid
dissemination of new knowledge and unrestricted access to the results of
scholarship and research, the University Faculty Senate encourages the
library and the faculty vigorously to explore and support alternatives to
commercial venues for scholarly communication."
Also see the Cornell web site with background information on the problem
and more details on the Cornell response.
http://www.library.cornell.edu/scholarlycomm/problem.html
Paula Hane, Cornell and Other University Libraries to Cancel Elsevier
Titles, Information Today, November 17, 2003.
http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb031117-1.shtml
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2003_11_16_fosblogarchive.html#a10690747=
0468289537
Jonathan Knight, Cornell axes Elsevier journals as prices rise, Nature,
November 20, 2003 (accessible only to subscribers).
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=3D/nature/journal/v426/n696=
4/full/426217a_fs.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2003_11_16_fosblogarchive.html#a10693330=
4024428458
Anon., After failed negotiations, CU Library cancels Elsevier journal
package, Cornell Chronicle, December 11, 2003.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/03/12.11.03/CUL_Elsevier.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2003_12_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10713627=
3320683085
* University of California system: Letter to all UC faculty from Lawrence
Pitts, Chair of the Academic Senate, and the head librarians of the 11 UC
campuses, January 7, 2004.
http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/facmemoscholcomm_010704.pd=
f
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_01_04_fosblogarchive.html#a10736974=
3107876209
Summary: The letter cites and summarizes the preceding actions taken by
several of the UC campuses (above) and announces the cancellation of
"approximately 200" journals. "The economics of scholarly journal
publishing are incontrovertibly unsustainable. Taming price inflation is
not enough. Unless we change the current model, academic libraries and
universities will be unable to continue providing faculty, students, and
staff with the access they require to the world's scholarship and
knowledge. Scholars will be unable to make the results of their research
widely available. These are not statements about any single company, about
the strengths and weaknesses of for- and not-for-profit publishing, or
about the prospects of open-access versus subscription-based journal
models. They are merely observations about economic reality....[W]e are
have been paying more for access to a smaller proportion of the world's
published knowledge. If we are to halt or even reverse that trend, we must
aggressively ramp up and institutionalize our efforts to change the
scholarly communication process....The UC Libraries are working
aggressively to...support alternative means for publishing scholarly
materials that make high-quality peer-reviewed work available at an
affordable price."
The university created a Special Committee on Scholarly Communication to
examine new methods of scholarly communication. It also created a web page
to track the university's future actions on this front.
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/committees/council/scsc/
Also see the UC libraries web site on scholarly communications, which
recomments that faculty "[s]upport open access journals and self-archiving"=
.
http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/scholarly/
On April 29, 2003, the UC Systemwide Library and Scholarly Information
Advisory Committee adopted a resolution on Digital Library Journal
Collecting Principles. "To align costs with value, the Committee recommends
that UC libraries, in close consultation with the faculty, initiate a
Systemwide review and renegotiation of the University's contracts with
publishers whose pricing practices are not sustainable."
http://www.slp.ucop.edu/consultation/slasiac/SLASIAC_Resolution_G.html
Jennifer Murphy, Library struggles to fund access, Daily Bruin, November
17, 2003.
http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?id=3D26372
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2003_11_23_fosblogarchive.html#a10696828=
6923461641
Elsevier issued its own press release on the California contract,
emphasizing the volume of material the deal makes accessible to California
users, January 10, 2004.
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=3Dnews_=
view&newsId=3D20040109005619&newsLang=3Den
(dead link)
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0401/msg00028.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_01_04_fosblogarchive.html#a10737455=
2945886852
Anon., UC System Inks Five Year Deal with Elsevier, Stops Price Inflation,
Library Journal, January 14, 2004.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA374376?display=3DbreakingNews
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_01_11_fosblogarchive.html#a10740893=
2651858026
Yvette Essen, Market Report, The Telegraph, January 20, 2004. Whether
budget cuts in California will force the University of California to
renegotiate its contract with Elsevier.
http://www.money.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=3D/money/2004/01/20/c=
xmktrep20.xml&menuId=3D243&sSheet=3D/money/2004/01/20/ixfrontmarkets.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_01_18_fosblogarchive.html#a10746143=
4651202789
* Triangle Research Libraries Network: Changes in Elsevier Science
Access</a>, memorandum to the Faculties (of Duke University, North Carolina
State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) from
Peter Lange, Provost at Duke, James Oblinger, Provost and Executive Vice
Chancellor at NCSU, and Robert Shelton, Provost and Executive Vice
Chancellor at UNC at Chapel Hill, January 14, 2004.
http://www.trln.org/elsevier%20memo.pdf
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_01_11_fosblogarchive.html#a10742802=
5112956669
Summary: "[T]he member universities of the Triangle Research Libraries
Network (TRLN) have decided to discontinue the consortial arrangement by
which they provided access to electronic journals published under the
Elsevier Science imprint....Throughout months of renewal negotiations with
Elsevier, TRLN and its member libraries have articulated two principal
objectives: [1] To regain and maintain control over library collecting
decisions in order to meet the constantly evolving information needs of
faculty, researchers, and students; and [2] To manage overall costs in
order to keep Elsevier expenditures consistent with materials budgets that
have not been increasing at anywhere near Elsevier's annual inflation rate.
Elsevier's final offer fails to meet both of these objectives....Because
Elsevier Science has not offered TRLN a pricing model responsive to the
needs of the consortium, TRLN has elected to terminate its consortial
arrangement with Reed Elsevier. Each TRLN library will now make individual
arrangements for Elsevier journal access on its own campus....Although
libraries and universities are supporting new publishing models in an
effort to maintain access to high-quality, peer-reviewed research at a
manageable cost, there is still a reliance on the products of for-profit
publishers. As a result of this dynamic, libraries can no longer offer the
same range of publications to the academic community....The
libraries...will begin to explore with you new models of scholarly
communication that may, in the long term, help reduce costs and make
scholarly information more widely available."
TRLN member North Carolina State University adopted a separate Resolution
on Bundled Content and Elsevier on December 2, 2003. "[O]pen access and
communication of scholarly research are fundamental to intellectual and
academic freedom and critical to economic growth and development."
http://www.ncsu.edu/ncsu/faculty_senate/R2-0304.htm
Eric Ferreri, Colleges ax journals deal, the Durham NC Herald-Sun, January
12, 2004.
http://www.herald-sun.com/orange/10-434527.html (dead link)
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_01_11_fosblogarchive.html#a10740114=
3797995759
Anon., TRLN to Forgo the Big Deal, Library Journal, January 14, 2004.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA374375?display=3DbreakingNews
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_01_11_fosblogarchive.html#a10740893=
2651858026
Kenneth Ball, Libraries cancel Elsevier contract, North Carolina State
University's TechnicianOnline, January 16, 2004.
http://technicianonline.com/01162004/News/N2_library.php
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_01_11_fosblogarchive.html#a10742734=
8184460558
Kenneth Ball, Senate Backs Libraries, Technician Online (the NCSU student
newspaper), December 4, 2003.
http://technicianonline.com/12042003/News/N1_Sena.php
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2003_11_30_fosblogarchive.html#a10705509=
9102448957
Anon., NCSU Faculty Takes Hard Line on New Elsevier Deal, Library Journal,
December 8, 2004.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA340264?display=3DbreakingNews
Joseph Schwartz, Campus to drop journal contract, U of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill's Daily Tar Heel, January 16, 2004.
http://www.dailytarheel.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/01/15/4006958d53e28
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_01_11_fosblogarchive.html#a10742736=
8311657896
* MIT: Announcement on the MIT Libraries web site. (February 2004?)
http://libraries.mit.edu/about/journals/packages.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_01_fosblogarchive.html#a10760915=
1119540831
Summary: "The MIT Libraries have recently taken steps to reduce the impact
of two large commercial publishers on our ability to make responsible
decisions in selecting information resources for use at MIT. Specifically,
we declined three-year renewal contracts that would have required us to
guarantee on-going spending levels with Wiley InterScience and Elsevier
Science. These actions ensure that if the Libraries need to reduce spending
in the next year or two, we can make those decisions based solely on the
specific needs of the MIT user community, without giving unfair advantage
to certain publishers....The decision to decline the three-year renewals
was difficult because the terms for one-year renewals were considerably
less attractive. However, the one-year renewals put us in a position of
being able to cancel titles next year if we need to."
Also see the MIT web site on scholarly communication for background
information on the problem and news and advice for faculty.
http://libraries.mit.edu/about/journals/index.html
* University of Connecticut, Resolution adopted by the Faculty Senate,
February 9, 2004.
http://www.arl.org/scomm/resolutions/conn.html
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/530.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_08_fosblogarchive.html#a10764349=
1419275201
Summary: "Access to the scholarly literature is vital to all members of
the academic community. Scholars and their professional associations share
a common interest in the broadest possible dissemination of peer-reviewed
contributions. Unfortunately, the business practices of some journals and
journal publishers is inimical to these interests and threatens to limit
the promise of increased access inherent in digital technologies.
Development of library collections is more and more constrained by the
rising costs of journals and databases. Faculty, staff, students, and
university administrators must all take greater responsibility for the
scholarly communication system. Therefore, the University Senate calls on
all faculty, staff, and students of the University of Connecticut to become
familiar with the business practices of journals and journal publishers in
their specialty. It especially encourages senior tenured faculty to reduce
their support of journals or publishers whose practices are inconsistent
with the health of scholarly communication by submitting fewer papers to
such journals, by refereeing fewer papers submitted to such journals, or by
resigning from editorial posts associated with such journals. It encourages
them to increase their support of existing journals and publishers whose
practices are consistent with the health of scholarly communication. The
Senate also calls on University administrators and departmental, school,
college and University committees to reward efforts by faculty, staff, and
students to start or support more sustainable models for scholarly
communication. It calls on them to provide financial and material support
to faculty, staff, and students whose work helps to ensure broad access to
the scholarly literature. It also calls on professional associations and
the University to invest in the infrastructure necessary to support new
venues for peer-reviewed publication."
Before it adopted this resolution, the Faculty Senate deleted a
recommendation (contained e.g. in the Santa Cruz resolution above) that
tenure and promotion committees should respect faculty decisions to follow
the advice of the resolution. See the minutes of the faculty meeting
(scroll to item 8).
http://senate.uconn.edu/senmin040209.doc
* Stanford University: Faculty senate approves measure targeting
for-profit journal publishers, a press release issued February 24,
2004. The press release is based on a February 19 vote of the Faculty Sena=
te.
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/04/journals225.html
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2004/february25/journals-225.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_22_fosblogarchive.html#a10777175=
0816621733
Summary: With one dissenting vote, the Faculty Senate voted to encourage
"libraries to cancel some costly journal subscriptions and faculty to
withhold articles and reviews from publishers who engage in questionable
pricing practices. The motion singled out publishing giant Elsevier as
deserving special attention. 'We're not doing this to position ourselves to
negotiate more effectively with Elsevier,' said University Librarian
Michael Keller. 'We're doing this to change the whole scene. We're trying
to change the fundamental nature of scholarly communication in the journal
industry.'...'I think it's going to take a long time for its prestige and
cachet to wear out,' [biology professor Robert] Simoni said. 'There are
still so many people who think publishing in Cell is going to make their
career that they'll still get submissions. But if institutions like
Stanford and others stop subscribing to journals like Cell, authors will
eventually realize that their work is not being seen. This is an
evolutionary change and it will take time."
Michael Miller, Fac Sen discusses journal fees, The Stanford Daily,
February 6, 2004. Stanford discusses how to respond to the serials crisis.
http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=3Dcontent&id=3D13027&repository=3D0001=
_article
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_01_fosblogarchive.html#a10760966=
0311868110
Ryan Sands, Fac Sen addresses costly journals, The Stanford Daily, February
20, 2004.
http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=3Dcontent&id=3D13231&repository=3D0001=
_article
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_15_fosblogarchive.html#a10773856=
5589836419
* University of Maryland: Changes in Access to Journals Published by Reed
Elsevier, a letter from William W. Destler, Provost, to the faculty,
February 20, 2004.
http://www.lib.umd.edu/CLMD/Faculty/provost.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_22_fosblogarchive.html#a10775459=
5222558353
Summary: The university cancelled consortial access to the Baltimore
campus subscriptions and converted the College Park campus subscriptions to
electronic-only. It describes the failed Elsevier negotiations in language
similar to that in the TRLN statement above, and then continues. "By
retaining the ability to cancel titles, the Libraries maintain the option
of building collections with other publishers' titles where they provide
greater value to the campus community....The University of Maryland is
working with other research universities to address this crisis. One
example of this type of work is the Libraries' participation in the
Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition [SPARC]....I firmly
believe that universities must address this crisis in the system of
scholarly communication. Our libraries need our support in their work with
the university community to regain control of their budgets, their
collections, and the intellectual property that is the ultimate output of
the research enterprise. I encourage you to continue to engage in
discussions with our library faculty about what we are doing to explore new
models of scholarly communication and restore a measure of rationality to
the publishing system. It is important to extend the discussion beyond our
campus as well, especially for those of you who serve on editorial boards
of journals published commercially or by learned societies."
* Indiana University at Bloomington: Resolution on Journals, Databases,
and Threats to Scholarly Publication, adopted by the Bloomington Faculty
Council, February 27, 2004.
http://www.indiana.edu/~bfc/docs/AY04/circulars/B39-2004.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10783432=
7645834594
Summary: "The continuing escalation of serial prices, which have more than
doubled in the past 10 years, is unsustainable in the long run. The
increase is due to a number of factors: the information explosion, the
expansion of electronic capabilities by publishing groups, as well as the
growth of mega-publishers whose profits greatly exceed the Consumer Price
Index....Scholars and their professional associations share a common
interest in the broadest possible dissemination of peer-reviewed
contributions. Unfortunately, it is the business practices of a few large
journals and journal publishers that threaten to limit the promise of
increased access inherent in digital technologies. Therefore, the
Bloomington Faculty Council [A] calls on all faculty, staff, students, and
university administrators of Indiana University Bloomington to work toward
a more open publishing system by increasing their support of existing
refereed journals and publishers whose practices are consistent with open
access to scholarly communication and to support those who make such
choices when considering tenure and promotion; [B] encourages faculty and
staff to separate themselves from publishers with a narrow focus on profits
at the expense of open scholarly publication; [C] calls on the university
Libraries to educate faculty, staff, students, and university
administrators on the business practices of different journals and journal
publishers and their impact on the health of scholarly communication and on
our Libraries at Indiana University Bloomington." The preamble adds the
specific recommendations that faculty consider "withholding publications
from their journals or choosing not to sit on their editorial boards" and
that "[i]n tenure and promotion decisions faculty and staff must be
confident that there is departmental and university support for their
decisions to publish in referred journals with more open access."
Chris Freiberg, Council approves code revisions, Indiana Digital Student
News, March 3, 2004.
http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=3D21798
* Macalester College: Background Information on Science Direct Decision,
February 29, 2004.
http://www.macalester.edu/library/misc/
Summary: Macalaster decided not to sign a three-year renewal of
ScienceDirect. "The reality is we just can't commit to the inflexibility of
not cancelling any Elsevier titles....[W]e invited faculty members in the
sciences divisions to a meeting on Monday, Nov. 10th. At that meeting, we
shared the details of the contract and we presented three options including
to stay as a participant within the deal, and we explained that by not
participating we would not have electronic access to the Elsevier titles we
purchased in print. It was a small group, but they were all in agreement,
giving up electronic access and access to a significant number of journals
that many of them used was a sacrifice that needed to be made and one that
they supported."
* Rumblings (institutions contemplating action)
Columbia University: Megan Greenwell, CU Senate Postpones Resolution Yet
Again, Columbian Spectator, March 1, 2004.
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/03/01/4042fd1c526=
9e
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10781534=
7898671038
Also see the web site on the problem and solutions created by the Columbia
Health Sciences Library.
http://library.cpmc.columbia.edu/hsl/scholcom/help.html
San Jose State University: See Claudia Plascencia, Academic journals to be
sacrificed in library cuts, San Jose State University Spartan Daily, March
24, 2004.
http://www.thespartandaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/03/23/405ff89160b90
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10801864=
8814143783
University of Iowa: See Kristen Schorsch, UI libraries brace for cuts,
Iowa City Press-Citizen, December 2, 2003.
http://www.press-citizen.com/news/120203libraries.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2003_11_30_fosblogarchive.html#a10705509=
9102448957
University of Oregon: Chuck Slothower, University Libraries to cut several
serial subscriptions, Oregon Daily Emerald, February 21, 2004. A plan to
cancel more than 300 titles in May, and a call for faculty input on the
titles to be cut.
http://www.dailyemerald.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/02/20/40363fc943106
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_15_fosblogarchive.html#a10773836=
0197693130
* General news stories on more than one university action
Nigel Hawkes, Boycott 'greedy' journal publishers, say scientists, The
Times, November 10, 2003.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-888415,00.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2003_11_09_fosblogarchive.html#a10684550=
7308493889
Paula Hane, Cornell and Other University Libraries to Cancel Elsevier
Titles, Information Today, November 17, 2003.
http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb031117-1.shtml
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2003_11_16_fosblogarchive.html#a10690747=
0468289537
Dan Carnevale, Libraries With Tight Budgets Renew Complaints About
Elsevier's Online Pricing, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 19, 2003=
.
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v50/i17/17a03302.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2003_12_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10715022=
9166984893
Susan Mayor, US universities review subscriptions to journal "package
deals" as costs rise, BMJ, January 10, 2004.
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7431/68
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_01_04_fosblogarchive.html#a10736264=
6047626157
Andrew Porter, Has Reed's Mr 10% lost his golden touch? Fears over growth
at Crispin Davis's empire, London Times, January 12, 2004. On troubles at
Elsevier including the library cancellations.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2095-958825,00.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_01_11_fosblogarchive.html#a10740042=
6517162620
Bobby Pickering, Elsevier hits back at journal cuts, Information World
Review, January 12, 2003.
http://www.iwr.co.uk/iwreview/1150997
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2003_11_30_fosblogarchive.html#a10705536=
9817698251
Christopher A. Reed, Just Say No to Exploitative Publishers of Science
Journals, Chronicle of Hgher Education, February 20, 2004.
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v50/i24/24b01601.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_15_fosblogarchive.html#a10769465=
4591389950
Owen Dyer, US universities threaten to cancel subscriptions to Elsevier
journals, BMJ, March 6, 2004.
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7439/543
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10785482=
1092379606
Charles Burress, The staggering price of world's best research, San
Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 2004.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=3D/c/a/2004/03/28/BAGQE5SL3I1.D=
TL
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10805035=
0311690782
Randy Reichardt, Cancellation of Elsevier Packages at Cornell, MIT,
Harvard, etc. - Commentaries, posting to the STLQ (Sci-Tech Library
Question) blog.
http://http://stlq.info/archives/001357.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10808523=
7220066697
* Postscript. Because the pricing crisis could be solved by affordable
prices, without open access, it is only obliquely connected to open
access. However, as the public statements show, a growing number of
universities see open access as part of any long-term, sustainable
alternative to the current journal system. That's the primary connection
between the pricing crisis and OA.
But here are two other connections that are often overlooked. Scholars can
launch OA *journals* whenever they have the means and the will. They
needn't ask conventional publishers to convert. Scholars can always
deposit their preprints, and can usually deposit their postprints, in OA
*archives* even while publishing in conventional subscription-based
journals, even in the most expensive ones. These two paths to OA show that
we needn't solve the pricing crisis first and work on OA second. On the
contrary, providing OA to more and more of our research now is the most
direct and effective way to advance OA. It also happens to be part of any
comprehensive assault on the pricing problem.
The primary reason for researchers to provide OA to their own work is to
enlarge their audience and increase their impact. This may have only a
remote and indirect connection to journal prices. We should provide OA to
our work in order to advance knowledge, advance our careers, and advance
OA. Solving the pricing problem is terribly important, but building an
effective OA alternative is the best solution, even if it's done without
regard for its effect on prices.
----------
Reflections on the DC principles
On March 16 a group of non-profit publishers released the Washington D.C.
Principles for Free Access to Science. The signatories are learned
societies and non-profit associations that publish subscription-based
journals. Although they charge subscriptions, they also offer free online
access to some of their content (e.g. sufficiently old issues) and to some
of their users (e.g. from sufficiently indigent nations).
Some press accounts and listserv discussions have misunderstood what is
happening here. Because the signatories emphasize "free access to
science", some observers have mistaken them for open-access advocates. On
the other side, because open-access advocates often support non-profit
publishers as good citizens in an industry dominated by monopolists, they
sometimes understate their differences with them in order to preserve
alliances and remain focused on where the problems are much worse. So some
observers have mistaken the position of OA advocates as endorsement of the
DC principles. Both sides have underemphasized their differences, in the
name of comity and cooperation, but with the result that they have been
mistaken for one another.
I want to try something tricky. I want to be clear and candid about the
differences, but I also want to interpret the DC principles as a
constructive step forward and respond constructively to them.
From the standpoint of open access, subscriptions are a problem. They are
price barriers that not only exclude indigent readers, but also exclude
crawling software that facilitates full-text search, retrieval, indexing,
mining, and alerting. For most of the software that mediates serious
research, prices are absolute barriers, whether they are high or low, as
long as they enforced with password-demanding DRM. But for human readers
and their institutions, prices are a matter of degree. Free is better than
affordable, and affordable is better than expensive.
In an industry known for exorbitant prices, non-profit publishers tend to
keep their prices affordable. In an industry known for publishers who put
the needs of shareholders ahead of the needs of science, society publishers
tend to use their revenue to advance their scientific and scholarly
missions. They deserve praise for this even from scientists who see all
subscription fees as unnecessary access barriers.
I don't want to criticize the effort to keep prices within reach and
generate revenue to advance the cause of science and scholarship, and I
don't want to magnify differences among groups that are both dedicated to
widening access to knowledge. But I do believe that fully free access is
economically sustainable and in the best interest of science. I also
believe that arguing for this conclusion (which I will not do much of here)
need not become divisive any more than arguments for other conclusions,
including arguments for the opposite conclusion. I'd like to cast this as
a disagreement among friends.
The preamble to the principles asserts that the signatories want to promote
"the wide dissemination of information in [their] journals". Principle #3
lists five ways in which they support "forms of free access", such as free
online access to selected new articles and free online access to whole
issues after a certain embargo period.
In principle #6, the signatories say that they "strongly support the
principle that publication fees should not be borne solely by researchers
and their funding institutions, because the ability to publish in
scientific journals should be available equally to all scientists
worldwide, no matter what their economic circumstances."
It's not clear what principle #6 is getting at. If it asserts that the
funding model for scientific journals should not exclude indigent authors,
then the signatories are preaching to the converted or disputing without an
antagonist. Everyone agrees with that principle. If it means that the
upfront funding model used at many OA journals does exclude indigent
authors, despite good intentions, despite fee waivers in cases of hardship,
despite the willingness of many foundations to pay these fees on behalf of
authors, and despite other mitigations, then it's a factual claim in need
of evidence, not a principle to assert without evidence. I've argued
elsewhere that this factual claim is false (see SOAN for 11/2/03). But if
it's true, then OA proponents will be just as concerned as OA critics to
find a remedy.
In principle #7 the signatories say "that a free society allows for the
co-existence of many publishing models".
There is more than one publishing model within OA. For example, most OA
journals in biomedicine use the upfront funding model obliquely criticized
in principle #6, while OA journals in less well-funded fields are finding
models that require no fees at all. But the signatories don't seem to mean
that there should be many co-existing models *within* OA, although I think
that should please them. They seem to mean that there should be many
co-existing models *beyond* OA, or that subscription-based models and OA
models should co-exist. If the question is what "a free society allows",
then of course they are right. Nobody wants to live in a society that
prohibits subscription-based journals. (Arguing for another model is very
different from arguing for a prohibition.) If the question is what's in
the best interest science, then it's an open question not settled by
consensus on what is permitted in a free society.
I'd like to read principles ##6 and 7 in light of the preamble on wide
dissemination and in light of the list in principle #4 of the ways that the
signatories already provide free access. Taking these together, the
document seems to assert a principle that could be paraphrased this
way: Scientific journal publishers should provide the widest possible
access compatible with a responsible business model. A responsible
business model --among other things-- pays the journal's expenses, doesn't
compromise the integrity of peer review, and doesn't exclude indigent autho=
rs.
I hope this is a fair way to read the parts of the document in light of the
whole and the whole in light of the parts. If it is, then I want to praise
it. It deserves praise as a constructive step in the dialog about access
and as a good principle in its own right. It's a constructive step because
it appeals to commonly held values and gets us beyond polarization and
name-calling. It appeals to commonly held values because OA journals want
a responsible business model in the exactly same sense. If we agree about
that, then we can turn down the temperature and talk shop about how to
widen access as far as possible under a responsible business model and how
to develop responsible models compatible with wider access.
I may be wrong. The DC signatories may have meant that they want a certain
level of wide access compatible with the survival of subscription revenue,
even if it would be perfectly possible to achieve wider, completely open
access under a responsible business model. If so, then I would have to
quarrel with their goal. But for now, I'll assume we agree about the goal
and can work together on the means and methods. Which means and methods
work best in which circumstances, and how close can we get to the goal
without violating our criteria for a responsible business model? This way
of reading the document makes it an invitation to constructive collaboratio=
n.
It also makes it an open challenge to both kinds of journals. The open
challenge to OA journals is to show that immediate OA to all of their
peer-reviewed research articles is compatible with a responsible business
model. Their challenge is to show that their model is responsible, or to
show that widening access further than the DC signatories are willing to do
is compatible with the DC signatories' own high standards for a responsible
journal. Part of their challenge is to alter their models if they discover
that they are not responsible.
The open challenge to subscription-based journals is to show that all
responsible publishing models require subscriptions. If there is even one
that doesn't require subscriptions, then they are not widening access as
far as they responsibly can. Their challenge is to show that the known OA
models are not responsible. Part of their challenge is to be prepared to
widen access further if they discover that doing so will not violate their
own high standards.
OA proponents are already taking steps to meet their challenge. Over 800
peer-reviewed OA journals around the world are now finding ways --more than
one way-- to provide peer review and open access at the same time. But
perhaps they will not survive, or perhaps they do peer review badly or
exclude indigent authors. Let's look and see. These are not questions of
principle, but observation. Moreover, if longevity is part of a
responsible business model, then the observations will take some
time. Finally, many journals are experimenting with OA, and finding new
variations on older business models that seem to fit their unique
circumstances. Letting these experiments run their course will also take
time. Meantime, many studies are underway that collect business data from
OA journals and subject it to independent analysis.
If non-profit publishers want to know how wide access can be without
violating the standards of a responsible business model, then they should
welcome the evidence as it emerges. They should welcome the present
climate of experimentation. And they should participate in the experiments
themselves.
The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP)
represents society and non-profit publishers just like those that signed
the DC principles. Last year the ALPSP issued a public statement in favor
of "maximizing access" to research literature but also expressing doubts
about the known OA business models. The solution it called for was not to
shun OA but to experiment. Instead of asking its members to wait for
others to conduct the experiments and report the results, it called on its
members to participate. Moreover, it called on its members to share their
business data in an ongoing assessment of the viability of their
experiments. Just last week, the ALPSP released its Principles of
Scholarship-Friendly Journal Publishing Practice, repeating the goal of
maximizing access, repeating the call to experiment, and arguing that OA
itself is "in tune with the mission of many learned societies".
Some society publishers are experimenting with alternate business
models. For example, the American Society for Cell Biology (not a DC
signatory) provides free online access to its journal, _Molecular Biology
of the Cell_ (MBC) two months after print publication. In an October 2003
interview in _Open Access Now_, the ASCB Executive Director, Elizabeth
Marincola said, "[N]o publication in the world...can credibly argue that
their revenues will be significantly affected if they release their content
six months after publication....It is the explicit goal of the society to
try to find a way to release MBC without even a two-month delay while
retaining our financial base."
Many of the DC signatories provide free online access after a six month
embargo period. How many wait even longer? How many are experimenting
with shorter embargo periods?
There is one way that society and non-profit publishers could support OA
without ceasing to charge subscriptions. They could make it easy for
authors to deposit their postprints in OA archives or repositories. If
they ask authors to transfer copyright, then as the copyright-holders they
could give permission for postprint archiving. Or they could let authors
retain copyright so that authors would be free to deposit their postprints
without anyone else's permission. The new ALPSP principles find that 60%
of society publishers already permit postprint archiving. Moreover,
"[a]lthough some speculate that increasing use of OAI-compliant metadata
will ultimately enable such posting to undermine subscription and licence
income, this does not seem to be the case so far."
Journals could go further and positively encourage postprint
archiving. Among others who recommend this strategy is Jim Pitman, Chair
of the Publications Committee of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics,
a society publisher (not a DC signatory).
How many of the DC signatories let authors retain copyright? Why do
(about) 40% still not permit postprint archiving? How many are considering
an experiment in which they permit it?
Other notable OA experiments by non-profits are taking place at the
American Physiological Society and the Company of Biologists (both DC
signatories) as well as the American Anthropological Association, American
Society of Limnology and Oceanography, and the Entomological Society of
America (not DC signatories).
I'd like to know about other experiments, and will do what I can draw
attention to them through my blog and newsletter. And I'd like to know how
non-profits assess the pressures of the contemporary journal
marketplace. How many feel more threatened by OA than by declining library
budgets and the big deal? How many are worrying that journals do not
attract members as they once did, especially when potential members have
subsidized online access at their institutional desktops? How many see OA
as part of a solution to declining memberships and exclusion from the big
deal rather than part of the problem? How many are focusing on one OA
business model that may not work for them rather than thinking about the
range of OA models, the varieties of gradual adoption, and the universe of
untried, creative experiments?
My position is no secret. I want OA for all peer-reviewed research
articles and their preprints, and I want it without any embargo
period. But I also want OA journals to have responsible business models
that don't compromise on peer review or exclude indigent authors. I
endorse these criteria. But how many signatories of the DC principles
would endorse OA if it could be shown that OA journals can meet these
criteria? How many care whether existing OA journals already meet
them? How many are monitoring experiments to test the viability of OA
business models? How many are experimenting themselves?
Learned societies that publish journals are both consumers and producers of
science. In this respect, they are like universities and individual
scholars, and unlike commercial publishers. This dual interest creates
conflicts about goals and priorities for which there is no single or simple
solution. As producers of science, society publishers need to cover their
costs. As consumers and users of science, they need to contribute to a
milieu of barrier-free access and sharing. Or, as businesses representing
scientists, they must survive in order to serve their members; but they
must ultimately serve their members.
The OA proposition is that there are responsible business models that let
publishers do both. If true, then journals can responsibly cover their
expenses and still remove access barriers that hinder research. The dual
interest of operating a healthy business and serving science does not, by
itself, rule out the OA proposition or entail the need to compromise. But
is the OA proposition true? That's a matter of investigation, not
rejection on principle.
Washington D.C. Principles for Free Access to Science
http://www.dcprinciples.org/statement.htm
Signatories of the DC principles
http://www.dcprinciples.org/signatories.htm
Response to the DC principles from the Association of Academic Health
Sciences Libraries, American Association of Law Libraries, American Library
Association, Association of College & Research Libraries, Association of
Research Libraries, Medical Libraries Association, Open Society Institute,
Public Knowledge, SPARC, and SPARC Europe
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/613.html
http://www.arl.org/sparc/core/index.asp?page=3Df79
(Full disclosure: I am affiliated with two of the signatories of this
response and participated in its drafting.)
ALPSP statement on open access journal publishing, including a call to
experiment
http://www.alpsp.org/news/openaccpositionstatementoct03.pdf
ALPSP call on experimenters to share their business data for analysis
http://www.alpsp.org/2004pdfs/NFPSurvey190204.pdf
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/429.html
ALPSP principles of scholarship-friendly journal publishing practice
(released just last week)
http://www.alpsp.org/SFPubpress.htm
http://www.alpsp.org/2004pdfs/SFpub210104.pdf
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10803146=
3701016281
Open Access Now interview with Elizabeth Marincola, Executive Director of
the American Society for Cell Biology, October 2003
http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/archive/?page=3Dfeatures&issue=3D6
Jim Pitman's strategy for open access to society publications, January 28, =
2004
http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/users/pitman/strategy.html
Objection-reply: Do journal processing fees exclude the poor? (from SOAN
for 11/2/03)
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/11-02-03.htm#objreply
Objection-reply: Whether the upfront payment model corrupts peer review at
open-access journals (from SOAN for 3/2/04)
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/03-02-04.htm#objreply
What learned societies and non-profit publishers can do to promote open acc=
ess
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/lists.htm#societies
For news stories on the DC principles, see the Best of the Blog (New
Developments) section, below.
* Postscript. At the March 16 press conference announcing the DC
principles, Martin Frank of the American Physiological Society emphasized
the difference between various forms of "free access", which the principles
endorse, and "open access", which the principles do not endorse. Some
press and listserv discussions also latched on to the distinction between
free and open access, perhaps because it's convenient shorthand for more
complex differences of position. Some simply picked up on the word "free"
and equated it with "open" despite Frank's attempt to distinguish them.
But the distinction between free and open access is not at stake here, and
it only confuses matters to think that it is.
Unfortunately, there are no good short terms for the different positions in
this debate. The DC signatories are right to avoid the term "open access"
for what they do. But they are also right to say that they offer various
forms of "free" online access. They do. But they only offer free access
selectively, and this is their point. They offer it (1) to all of their
content for some users and (2) to some of their content for all
users. It's more precise and less misleading, then, to say that they are
distinguishing selective from general free access, or partial from full
free access, not "free" from "open" access.
----------
Coming up later this month
Here are some important OA-related events coming up in April
* Notable conferences in April
Social Science Data Archives: creating, depositing and using data
http://www.esds.ac.uk/news/edinburgh.asp
Edinburgh, April 2, 2004
Digital Library Federation, Spring Forum 2004
http://www.diglib.org/forums/Spring2004/
New Orleans, April 19-21, 2004
Open Publishing: an Opportunity for Learned Societies to Regain Control of
the Scientific Information Exchange (sponsored by SciX)
http://www.scix.net/
Ljubljana, Slovenia, April 20, 2004
E-Journal Technical Update (from UKSG)
http://www.uksg.org/events/210404.asp
Manchester, April 21, 2004
ePrints UK Manchester Workshop
http://www.rdn.ac.uk/projects/eprints-uk/workshops/manchester/
Manchester, April 22, 2004
Social Science Data Archives: creating, depositing and using data
http://www.esds.ac.uk/news/oxford.asp
Oxford, April 23, 2004
Towards a New Publishing Environment (Second Nordic Conference on Scholarly
Communication)
http://www.lub.lu.se/ncsc2004/
Lund, April 26-28, 2004
* Other OA-related conferences
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/conf.htm
----------
Best of the blog: new developments
A selection of open-access developments since the last issue of the
newsletter, taken from the Open Access News blog, which I write with other
contributors and update daily. I give both the item URL and blog posting
URL so that you can read the original story as well as what I or another
blog contributor had to say about it.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html
* On March 16, a group of 48 non-profit publishers released the Washington
D.C. Principles for Free Access to Science. Details and comments above.
http://www.dcprinciples.org/statement.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10794548=
6870157716
Also see the response by a group of library associations and
public-interest advocacy organizations.
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/613.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10794629=
3094097767
David Malakoff, "Open" Versus "Free" Journals, ScienceNOW, 16 March 2004.
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2004/316/1
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10796260=
9767150826
Katie Mantell, Societies back expanded free access to research, SciDev.Net,
March 18, 2004.
http://www.scidev.net/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=3Dreadnews&itemid=3D1280&la=
nguage=3D1
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10797134=
7542370135
Barbara Quint, Sci-Tech Not-For-Profit Publishers Commit to Limited Open
Access, Information Today, March 22, 2004.
http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb040322-2.shtml
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10799940=
9490058069
Lila Guterman, Scientific Societies' Publishing Arms Unite Against
Open-Access Movement, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 26, 2004.
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v50/i29/29a02001.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10799968=
6853024107
Jim Giles, Societies take united stand on journal access, Nature, March 25,
2004.
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=3D/nature/journal/v428/n698=
1/full/428356a_fs.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10801872=
1450459510
David Malakoff, Scientific Societies Lay Out 'Free Access' Principles,
Science Magazine, March 26, 2004.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/303/5666/1959b
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10803084=
3549225606
Anon., With "DC Principles," Societies Seek STM Middle Ground, Library
Journal, March 29, 2004.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA406417?display=3DbreakingNews
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10804845=
6274863653
Anon., Library Groups Offer Some Praise for "DC Principles", Library
Journal, March 29, 2004.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA406416?display=3DbreakingNews
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10804845=
6274863653
* The UK inquiry into journal prices and accessibility heard two sessions
of oral evidence.
Uncorrected transcript of oral evidence given on March 1 by Robert Campbell
(Blackwell), Richard Charkin (Nature Publishing Group), John Jarvis
(Wiley), Crispin Davis and Arie Jongejan (both Elsevier).
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/uc399-i=
/uc39902.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10784971=
2263849926
Uncorrected transcript of oral evidence given on March 8 by Julia King
(Institute of Physics), Sally Morris (ALPSP), Martin Richardson (Oxford
University Press), Nigel Goddard (Axiope), Vitek Tracz (BioMed Central),
and Harold Varmus (PLoS).
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/uc399-i=
i/uc39902.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10791048=
8090744118
The next session of oral evidence will take place on April 21. The
committee will hear first from a panel of libraries and then from a panel
of researchers. Representing libraries and related groups will be Lynne
Brindley (British Library), Peter Fox (Cambridge University Library),
Frederick Friend (JISC and University College London), and Di Martin
(University of Hertfordshire). Representing researchers will be Jane Carr
(Authors' Licensing & Collecting Society), James Crabbe (Animal and
Microbial Sciences, University of Reading), Nigel Hitchin (Mathematics,
Oxford), D.F. Williams (Tissue Engineering, University of Liverpool), and
John Fry (Microbial Ecology, Cardiff University).
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/science_and_technology_co=
mmittee/future_committee_meetings.cfm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10802223=
0623423223
BioMed Central created a web page on the UK inquiry. The page contains
links to the written submissions, to the transcripts of the oral testimony,
and to the very useful BMC catalog of 11 prominent myths about OA asserted
by publishers in their testimony, followed by 11 careful replies.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/inquiry/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10799610=
9563027403
I was going to publish my own list of links to written testimony, but now
I'm glad to recommend the BMC list instead.
David Hencke, Science journal publishers defend profits, The Guardian,
March 2, 2004.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1159922,00.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10782420=
5579315821
Richard Wray, Open access publishers close ranks, The Guardian, March 9, 20=
04.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1165396,00.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10788392=
0567953743
Catherine Brahic, UK hears open access evidence, TheScientist, March 10, 20=
04.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040310/05
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10789517=
1300554689
Sophie Rovner, Pressures Mount for Journals: Academics resist price
increases as politicians probe publishing business, Chemical & Engineering
News, March 15, 2004.
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/topstory/8211/8211notw7.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10793716=
5076464238
Paula Hane, U.K. Parliamentary Committee Holds Hearings on Scientific
Publishing, Information Today, March 22, 2004.
http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb040322-3.shtml
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10799951=
6795270826
Richard Poynder, The Inevitable and the Optimal, Information Today, April
1, 2004.
http://www.infotoday.com/it/apr04/poynder.shtml
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10808819=
1170583007
* Protests continued against the U.S. Treasury Department policy to apply
trade embargoes to the editing of scientific articles by citizens of
embargoed countries. Finally the protests had an effect and the Treasury
Department agreed to a "general license" that effectively lifts the embargo=
.
Allan Adler and Marc Brodsky, OFAC's Interpretation of IEEPA's
"Informational Materials" Exemption, AAP, January 23, 2004.
http://www.pspcentral.org/committees/executive/OFAC_background.doc
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10784065=
7430660062
Scientific Censorship, Chemical and Engineering News, March 1,
2004. Letters to the editor from C.A. Carroll and Cecil Fox.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmb.2003.12.079
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10782508=
4424051107
John Dudley Miller, Publishers steamed by US ban, The Scientist, March 2,
2004.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040302/04
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10782644=
5946150813
Lila Guterman, Congressman Says Treasury Department's Restrictions on
Publishers Violate Law, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 5, 2004.
http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2004/03/2004030503n.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10784926=
8057512850
The Persian Watch Center launched a "Petition in support of immediate
reversal of US Government Policy on Publication Ban from Trade Embargoed
Countries including IRAN".
http://www.antidiscrimination.org/petition5.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10785058=
3841127263
Isabel Gomez and Rosa Sancho, Support for Free Speech, Chemical and
Engineering News, March 8, 2004.
http://pubs.acs.org/isubscribe/journals/cen/82/i10/html/8210lett.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10788696=
6276406220
A license to traffic in ideas, Chicago Tribune, March 11, 2004. An
unsigned editorial.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0403110133mar11,1,6626985.st=
ory?coll=3Dchi-newsopinion-hed
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10790426=
8183632243
John Dudley Miller, IEEE members furious, The Scientist, March 16, 2004.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040316/05
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10794700=
4567736838
Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, Editing Ban to Be Eased, But Cuban Travel Blocked,
Science, March 19, 2004.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/303/5665/1742?ijkey=3D3V0cRJAZbA=
8g2&keytype=3Dref&siteid=3Dsci
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10798868=
9485139862
* The database bill pending in the U.S. House continued to generate news,
comment, controversy and, this month, a rival.
Declan McCullagh, Weaker database bill gets House committee vote, CNET
News.com, March 3, 2004.
http://news.com.com/2110-1014-5169394.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10784151=
7240430620
Andy Sullivan, US database-protection bill stalls in Congress, Reuters,
March 3, 2004.
http://www.forbes.com/technology/newswire/2004/03/03/rtr1285007.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10784163=
4995283658
Kim Zetter, Hands Off! That Fact Is Mine, Wired News, March 3, 2004.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62500-2,00.html?tw=3Dwn_story_pag=
e_next1
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10783271=
8599121753
* Elsevier extended to the Scopus beta to 30 additional institutions,
heating up the action created by the ISI-Citeseer collaboration announced
earlier and the new work on an Open Access Citation Index.
Scopus
http://www.scopusnet.com/scopus/home.url
Bobby Pickering, Elsevier prepares Scopus to rival ISI Web of Science,
Vnunet, March 8, 2004.
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1153303
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10787565=
1619224237
Vincent Kiernan, New Database to Track Citations of Online Scholarship,
Chronicle of Higher Education, March 12, 2004. On the ISI-Citebase
collaboration.
http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2004/03/2004031204n.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10791097=
7928811249
Paula Hane, Elsevier Announces Scopus Service, Information Today, March 15,
2004.
http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb040315-1.shtml
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10793612=
1460586410
Kate Worlock, Scopus is unveiled for library testing, EPS, March 15, 2004.
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/641.html
* Two significant OA data-sharing initiatives for cancer research were
launched in the U.S. and U.K.
The Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG) is a major OA project from
the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI). It hasn't yet officially launch,
but the NCI made a public announcement of its near-readiness on March 9.
http://cabig.nci.nih.gov/
http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/caBIGQandA
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10789299=
2274978084
The International Genomics Consortium launched expO, a gene expression
database focused on cancer therapies.
http://www.intgen.org/expo_scientific_release.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10788645=
2248420953
A March 18 editorial in Nature looks forward to the possibilities unleashed
by the two initiatives and by their interaction.
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=3D/nature/journal/v428/n698=
0/full/428239b_fs.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10795534=
8089538999
Stephen Pincock, Cancer Data Initiative Launched, The Scientist, March 18,
2004.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040318/04
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10795534=
8089538999
Stephen Pincock, Initiative to exchange cancer research information is
launched, BMJ, March 27, 2004.
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7442/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10803225=
2986861681
* The Canadian Supreme Court ruled unanimously on March 4 that scholars may
make single copies of copyrighted works for research purposes without
paying any fees or violating copyright. Such copying is covered by "fair
dealing" (called "fair use" in the U.S.). At the same time the Court
rejected the concept of special protection for databases and reaffirmed
that only works requiring non-trivial "skill and judgment" are copyrightabl=
e.
The Court's decision in CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada
http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/csc-scc/en/rec/html/2004scc013.wpd.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10784431=
6508312500
The Law Society of Upper Canada, the winning party in the case, issued a
press release applauding the holding.
http://www.cnw.ca/fr/releases/archive/March2004/04/c7051.html
Kirk Makin, Ruling rejects licensing fees, Globe and Mail, March 5, 2004.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040305/PUB=
LISH05/TPNational/Canada
Michael Geist, Low-tech case has high-tech impact, Toronto Star, March 22, =
2004
http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=3Dthestar/Layou=
t/Article_Type1&c=3DArticle&cid=3D1079910611083&call_pageid=3D968350072197&=
col=3D969048863851
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10799964=
1132264018
("...one of the strongest pro-user rights decisions from any high court in
the world, showing what it means to do more than pay mere lip service to
balance in copyright.")
* Steve Stoft rigged up a custom Google search to search "just about every
CRS report available on the web". If you remember, these are
taxpayer-funded research reports, famous for their thoroughness and
objectivity, commissioned by members of Congress but rarely released to the
public.
http://2act.org/p/576.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10808788=
7013973926
* The University of California joined the Public Library of Science.
http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/scholarly/PLoS-UC_PR04-01-04.pd=
f
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10808773=
3223033897
* Searches on Thomson's ISI Web of Knowledge now cover 11 open-access
databases, including arXiv and NASA's Astrophysics Data System. Thomson
says there are more to come --and adds that this new layer of functionality
comes at no additional charge.
http://www.isinet.com/products/federated/webfeat/wfeatpowers/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10807724=
3071393192
* Back in 2002, arXiv removed 10 creationist preprints by Robert Gentry,
explaining that Gentry "lacked proper academic credentials". On March 23,
2004, Gentry's lawsuit against arXiv was dismissed by a Tennessee court.
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=3D/nature/journal/v428/n698=
2/full/428458a_fs.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10807630=
5155197336
* A new Wellcome Trust report, not primarily on OA or models of
publication, concludes that OA can make the research record less biased by
making it easier to disseminate negative results.
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/images/pub_health_sci_7867.pdf
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10806604=
4498793121
* SPARC and SPARC Europe signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to
Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.
http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/signatories.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10806542=
2232776538
* On March 26, 2004, ALPSP released its Principles of Scholarship-Friendly
Journal Publishing Practice. The principles endorse postprint archiving
(at least it doesn't seem "to undermine subscription and license
income...so far") and OA to back issues ("[i]f the timing is carefully
chosen"). They encourage experimentation with OA (the idea of which is "in
tune with the mission of many learned societies").
http://www.alpsp.org/SFPubpress.htm
http://www.alpsp.org/2004pdfs/SFpub210104.pdf
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10803146=
3701016281
* A discussion thread emerged on LibLicense on how open access would affect
impact factor. Peter Evans excerpted many of the key postings in the
thread for a summary in the March 26, 2004, issue of UKSG Serials eNews.
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0403/msg00103.html
http://www.biblio-tech.com/UKSG/SI_PD.cfm?AC=3D4725&PID=3D10&ZID=3D1173
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10803114=
5973018041
* On March 25, the Lund Directory of Open Access Journals listed its 800th
journal.
http://www.doaj.org/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10802284=
8635928934
* Yahoo maintains Free Full Text, a directory of over 7,000 scientific and
scholarly journals.
http://www.freefulltext.com/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10802269=
6808079331
* On March 23, the World Association of Medical Editors released a policy
statement on Geopolitical Intrusion on Editorial Decisions. It doesn't
mention the recent U.S. application of trade embargoes to the editing of
research articles by scientists from embargoed countries, but it seems to
be aimed at exactly that kind of political distortion of science.
http://wame.org/wamestmt.htm#geopolitical
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10802237=
0979702224
* The Creative Commons advertised for a full-time manager for its
forthcoming Science Commons.
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/4073
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10801477=
4843010923
* The Budapest Open Access Initiative added a page on Important Open Access
Initiatives, such as the Bethesda Statement and Berlin Declaration. It has
also created an Open Access Resources page to organize some of the content
already on the site such as its guide to repository software and business
guides for OA journals.
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/initiatives.shtml
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10800604=
4089482813
* Carl Lagoze won the 2004 Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in
Library and Information Technology. Carl is the co-creator of the Open
Archives Initiative, co-inventor of FEDORA and DIENST, and one of the
undisputed godfathers of online access and interoperability standards.
http://www.ala.org/ala/lita/litaresources/litascholarships/04fred.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10800570=
0913323750
* On March 22, Brewster Kahle and Richard Prelinger filed a suit in a
federal district court in California claiming that the Berne Convention
Implement Act (BCIA) and Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) together
create an "effectively perpetual" copyright term for a certain category of
works, and therefore violate the U.S. constitution. The affected works are
those published after January 1, 1964, and before January 1, 1978. Kahle,
Chairman of the Internet Archive, and Prelinger, President of the Prelinger
Archives, are represented by three attorneys, including Lawrence Lessig,
from the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/about/cases/Civil%20Complaint%203-22-04.pdf
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10800533=
3663255883
Also see the web page on the case created by the Stanford Center for
Internet and Society.
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/about/cases/kahle_v_ashcroft.shtml
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10802293=
9866160100
* The Information Program of the Open Society Institute (OSI) is now making
grants to support institutional memberships in the Public Library of
Science. Like OSI's ongoing program to support institutional memberships in
BioMed Central, the new grant program focuses on institutions in developing
countries.
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/grants.shtml#plos
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10799925=
6113410403
David Dickson, Developing country researchers get 'open access' boost,
SciDev.Net, March 29, 2004.
http://www.scidev.net/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=3Dreadnews&itemid=3D1294&la=
nguage=3D1
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10804192=
6919219224
David Dickson and Christina Scott, Soros scheme provides grants for
scientists to publish research in open-access journal, Cape Times, April 2,
2004.
http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=3D332&fArticleId=3D390550
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10808794=
2582260661
* The open-access Medline Plus was the top-scorer in the E-Government
Satisfaction Index for the first quarter of 2004.
http://www.theacsi.org/ASSETS/e-gov%20Q1%202004%203.9.04.xls
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10799658=
0081598193
* The DSpace Federation is now open to all interested institutions.
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/627.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10797907=
0605922309
* On March 19, Nature launched "Access to the literature: the debate
continues", a new collection of OA opinion pieces on the subject of
OA. The individual contributions to date are listed in the New
Bibliography section, below.
http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10797284=
7704107164
* The NPG journal, EMBO Reports, has changed its OA policy on back issues.
As a result, nine months of its back run (the last nine months of 2003)
have returned from open access to closed access.
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/624.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10797258=
8360279971
* The U.S. Department of Education has given a five-year contract to
Computer Services Corporation to operate ERIC.
http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2004/03/03182004.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10797170=
3371876667
Also see the short note on the new contract in Information Today for March =
29.
http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/wnd040329.shtml
* The Holon Academic Institute of Technology has launched a peer-reviewed,
open-access journal, the HAIT Journal of Science and Engineering.
http://www.hait.ac.il/jse/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10796296=
2029616400
* The Society for Computer Applications in Radiology (SCAR) has converted
its SCAR Expert Hotline to open access. Posting questions to the experts
will still cost non-members $125. But reading the Q&A will be free for all.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040316/dctu010_1.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10795443=
4322643916
* PLoS co-founders Pat Brown, Mike Eisen, and Harold Varmus won the Wired
Rave Award in the category of science.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040315/nym141a_1.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10794435=
9082027876
Full coverage appeared in Wired's April issue.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.04/rave.html?pg=3D14
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10803099=
3317291190
* Kenneth Olden, who converted the government-published journal,
Environmental Health Perspectives, to open access in January 2004, received
the Society of Toxicology's 2004 Public Communications Award.
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/oc/news/sotawd.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10793915=
0863160143
* Fifth-one liberal arts colleges became institutional members of the
Public Libraryof Science.
http://www.plos.org/news/announce_oberlin.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10793575=
3546847604
* Bioline International launched the Bioline International EPrints
Repository, an open-access, OAI-compliant archive for bioscience,
especially from developing countries.
http://bioline.utsc.utoronto.ca/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10791960=
3009393812
* Yahoo and OAIster have announced a win-win collaboration. An OA
repository developed by OAIster will be indexed by Yahoo, increasing the
visibility of the repository content and increasing the size and usefulness
of the Yahoo index.
http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2004/Mar04/r031004
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10791180=
7941732035
* Greek Orthodox monks are digitizing and providing OA to 3,300 manuscripts
(1.8 million pages of fragile and deteriorating paper) housed at the
sixth-century Monastery of St. Catherine in Mount Sinai, Egypt.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/technology/circuits/04monk.html?ei=3D5070=
&en=3De9a2bcfa06d41db0&ex=3D1079240400&pagewanted=3Dprint&position=3D
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10791043=
9811614711
* Project SHERPA has launched its edition of the index of publisher
policies on copyright and self-archiving that we formerly knew as a table
maintained by Project RoMEO. The SHERPA edition is a searchable database.
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10790638=
5903381895
* The University of California eScholarship Repository drew new attention
to its series of peer-reviewed, open-access journals using the repository
as the publishing infrastructure. (Some call these "overlay
journals"). The series was first announced last October, but now the
series is clearly on its feet, with two ongoing journals and plans to take
on a third.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/escholarship/eScholarship_peer_review_journal=
s_3-9-04.pdf
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10789384=
7711295394
Also see Marla Misek, eScholars of the World, Unite! The University of
California Revolutionizes Publishing Paradigm, EContent, March 10, 2004.
http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=3D6187
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10789388=
9482558823
Also see Jondi Gumz, University offers faculty alternatives for publishing
research, Santa Cruz Sentinel, March 13, 2004.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2004/March/13/local/stories/08loca=
l.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10791953=
1278018372
* BioMed Central announced RSS feeds for its OA journals and a
cross-journal meta-feed on the latest articles posted to its server.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/rss
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10788527=
0198499239
* JISC and OSI released the results of their survey on author attitudes
toward OA.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/JISCOAreport1.pdf
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10793064=
3298690716
* JISC distributed =A3150,000 to "allow four key publishers to move towards
or continue open access delivery for some of their journals." The
publishers were the Public Library of Science, Institute of Physics,
Lancaster University, and the International Union of Crystallography.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=3Dnews_openaccess_0304
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10785919=
8114178663
* The Institut Pasteur signed the Berlin Declaration Open Access to Knowled=
ge.
http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/signatories.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10784938=
9271015560
* Two New Zealand government agencies are paying for 100 NZ general
practitioners to have free online access to Clinical Evidence, a priced
journal from the BMJ Publishing Group.
http://xtramsn.co.nz/health/0,,7998-3143750,00.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10784118=
5805340488
* The Creative Commons launched a prototype search engine for finding
material under a CC license, free online and ready to use without further
permission.
http://search.creativecommons.org/
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/archive/2004/03/#4028
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10783547=
4982069264
* The IEEE has launched an OA edition of its five-year old
subscription-based journal, Distributed Systems. It appears that the OA
edition, which is the IEEE's first free online publication, is only a
subset of the monthly priced edition.
http://www.ieee.org/portal/index.jsp?pageID=3Dcorp_level1&path=3Dproducts/w=
hats-new/wnlib&file=3Dwnlib0204.xml&xsl=3Dgeneric.xsl#1
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10783210=
9807865480
* The University of South Carolina has launched GeriatricWeb, a
peer-reviewed, open-access database of medical literature on geriatrics.
http://geriatricweb.sc.edu/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10782449=
4626356750
* On February 29, the comment period closed on the UK Medical Research
Council's call for comments on how or in what form it should promote open
access.
http://www.mrc.ac.uk/index/public-interest/public-consultation/open_access-=
2/open-access_comments.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10788386=
9265697261
----------
Best of the blog: new bibliography
A selection of articles on open access published since the last issue of
the newsletter, taken from the Open Access News blog.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html
* Andrew Albanese, BioMed Central Changes Tack, Library Journal, March 15,
2004.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA386750
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10797325=
9930816173
* Anon., An interview with Director of Scholarly Information Strategies,
Australian National University, JISC, March 18, 2004.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=3Dinterview_anu_news_
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10797144=
8404835743
* Anon., La D=E9claration de Berlin : pour le d=E9veloppement du libre acc=
=E9s,
Revue Documentaliste, February 2004.
http://www.adbs.fr/site/publications/documentaliste/2085_1.php
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10804839=
691880435
* Anon., What copy rights? An unsigned editorial in the Mercury News, March
2, 2004.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/8076216.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10782466=
1297403605
* Barbara Aronson, Improving Online Access to Medical Information for
Low-Income Countries, New England Journal of Medicine, March 4, 2004.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/350/10/966
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10784112=
8227625428
* Subbiah Arunachalam, India's march towards open access, SciDev.Net, March
2004.
http://www.scidev.net/quickguides/index.cfm?fuseaction=3DqguideReadItem&typ=
e=3D3&itemid=3D243&language=3D1&qguideid=3D4
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10787555=
8328699856
* Peter Arzberger et al, An International Framework to Promote Access to
Data, Science 303 (5565), 1777-1778 (19 March 2004).
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/303/5665/1777
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10796491=
1805047516
Also see the NSF press release, Access to Research Data Critical to Advance
Science for Public Good.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/503737/
* Australian Department of Education, Science and Training, Review of
Closer Collaboration Between Universities and Major Publicly Funded
Research Agencies, March 24, 2004.
http://www.dest.gov.au/collaboration/default.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10802304=
6016217900
* Chris Awre, Finding that document! Enhancing the discovery and locating
of journals, Interlending and Document Supply, 2004.
http://ninetta.emeraldinsight.com/vl=3D1086819/cl=3D94/nw=3D1/rpsv/cgi-bin/=
linker?ini=3Demerald&reqidx=3D/cw/mcb/02641615/v32n1/s1/p7
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10791109=
8240603516
* Michael Banks, Amazon Opens the Books, Online, March 3, 2004.
http://www.infotoday.com/online/mar04/banks.shtml
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10783322=
0775145433
* Peter Banks, Open access: a medical association perspective, Learned
Publishing, April 2004.
http://puck.ingentaselect.com/vl=3D1526115/cl=3D64/nw=3D1/rpsv/cw/alpsp/095=
31513/v17n2/s8/p135
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10803184=
6722380127
* Gerhard Beier and Theresa Velden, The eDoc-Server Project: Building an
Institutional Repository for the Max Planck Society, High Energy Physics
Libraries Webzine, March 2004.
http://library.cern.ch/HEPLW/9/papers/4/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10791056=
4367413369
* BioMed Central, (Mis)Leading Open Access Myths, March 22, 2004.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/inquiry/myths.pdf
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10799217=
7570065105
* Patrick Brown, PLoS co-founder defends free dissemination of
peer-reviewed journals online, March 19, 2004.
http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/5.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10797284=
7704107164
* Charles Burress, The staggering price of world's best research, San
Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 2004.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=3D/c/a/2004/03/28/BAGQE5SL3I1.D=
TL
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_28_fosblogarchive.html#a10805035=
0311690782
* Declan Butler, Introduction [to the Nature debate, "Access to the
Literature"], Nature, March 19, 2004.
http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/1.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10797284=
7704107164
* Simon Caulkin, Black arts of the science mags, The Guardian, March 14, 20=
04.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1168763,00.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10792679=
3712086846
* Peter Celec, Open Access and Those Lacking Funds, Science, March 5, 2004.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/303/5663/1467c?etoc
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10784393=
6491129444
* Committee on Institutional Cooperation, Report of the CIC Summit on
Scholarly Communication in the Humanities and Social Sciences, CIC,
December 2, 2003. (While dated 2/03, the report was not released until 2/0=
4.)
http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/groups/CIC/archive/Report/ScholarlyCommSummitReport=
_Feb04.pdf
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10785029=
2673593538
* Nicholas R. Cozzarelli, UPSIDE: Uniform Principle for Sharing Integral
Data and Materials Expeditiously, Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, March 16, 2004. An editorial endorsing OA to data.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/11/3721?etoc
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_14_fosblogarchive.html#a10794651=
3214854972
* Lisa Currin, MIT's Double-Secret Hidden Agenda, eLearn. March 4, 2004.
http://elearnmag.org/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_02_29_fosblogarchive.html#a10785202=
0059078296
* Richard Danner, Issues in the Preservation of Born-Digital Scholarly
Communications in Law, a conference presentation from March 2003,
apparently revised for publication.
http://eprints.law.duke.edu/archive/00000614/01/Danner_LLJ_LIPA.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_21_fosblogarchive.html#a10803079=
8029421430
* David Dickson, The promises and perils of a technological revolution,
SciDev.Net, March 2004.
http://www.scidev.net/quickguides/index.cfm?fuseaction=3Ddossierfulltext&qg=
uideid=3D4
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10787555=
8328699856
* David Dickson, UK's Royal Society urges caution on open access,
SciDev.Net, March 12, 2004.
http://www.scidev.net/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=3Dreadnews&itemid=3D1276&la=
nguage=3D1
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_03_07_fosblogarchive.html#a10791321=
3268554903
* Helen Doyle, Open access can shrink the global knowledge gap, SciDev.Net,
Ma