Hardin Scholarly Communication News

Table of Contents
January 19, 2005

Issue 1.05

1. BioMed Central and PubMed Central
2. Congress Approves the NIH Public Access Plan
3. NIH Cancels Announcement and Appears Poised to Back Away From Open Access Mandate
4. Nature Publishing Announces Change to Self-Archiving Policy
5. Trade Embargo on Editing Lifted
6. “Publish or Be Damned” on BBC Radio 4
7. OA journals Debated in the Financial Times
8. Big Publishers Unveil Access Plan in Light of NIH Policy
9. Science Commons Hires Director
10. STM Publishing Continues Strong Growth
11. Elsevier Responds to the NIH’s "Enhanced Public Access to NIH Research Information"
12. PLOS to Launch New Journals in 2005
13. Open Access in 2004, and Predictions for 2005
14. American Library Association Begins Patriot Act Study
15. Serials Review Special Issue on Open Access
16. GPO Seeks Tools to Harvest Overlooked Documents on the Web
17. Free Scholarly Journals Online

This abstract is free online: ‘BioMed Central, an independent publisher, and PubMed Central, the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s digital archive of life sciences journal literature, have formed a partnership to provide secure open access to the full text of peer-reviewed scientific journals. BioMed Central’s model of pay-to-publish vs. subscription is controversial, but offers promise in a movement away from expensive institutional subscriptions, copyright release, and restricted access. Librarians can contribute to this Open Access movement by becoming educated on the issues and by advocating for change at their institutions.’ [Mary Youngkin, “ Access Marries Archive: BioMed Central/PubMed Central: An Open Access Partnership”, Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, November 23, 2004.]
Posted by Peter Suber at 7:38 AM. Open Access News, Nov. 24, 2004
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html

The House-Senate conference committee has approved the NIH public access plan. Here’s the official language, quoted in an ARL/SPARC press release:

The conferees are aware of the draft NIH policy on increasing public access to NIH-funded research. Under this policy, NIH would request investigators to voluntarily submit electronically the final, peer reviewed author’s copy of their scientific manuscripts; six months after the publisher’s date of publication, NIH would make this copy publicly available through PubMed Central. The policy is intended to help ensure the permanent preservation of NIH-funded research and make it more readily accessible to scientists, physicians, and the public.

The conferees note the comment period for the draft policy ended November 16th; NIH is directed to give full and fair consideration to all comments before publishing its final policy. The conferees request NIH to provide the estimated costs of implementing this policy each year in its annual Justification of Estimates to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. In addition, the conferees direct NIH to continue to work with the publishers of scientific journals to maintain the integrity of the peer review system."
Open Access News, Nov. 22, 2004 http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html

In a classic Washington political twist, The NIH abruptly cancelled a press conference scheduled for Tuesday that was expected to announce a new NIH policy promoting free access to taxpayer funded medical research–and it now appears that the NIH policy itself will be significantly scaled back from its original plan. According to SPARC director Rick Johnson, announcement of the NIH policy could be delayed indefinitely and at least until after confirmation hearings for the new Department of Health and Human Services Secretary-designate, Michael Leavitt, to whom the NIH reports. "If this is the case," Johnson mused in an email to fellow supporters, "it appears to reveal NIH’s concern about the reaction of supporters of open- access to taxpayer funded NIH research and the potential that the issue will come up in the confirmation hearings." Indeed, at least one media source, The Washington Fax, reported that "White House political strategy" was behind the postponement, characterizing the move as an attempt to ensure that "controversy surrounding the policy would not slow down Senate confirmation hearings" for Leavitt.

Most significantly, however, it also appears that the NIH has now backed off on its initial plan to make taxpayer- funded research freely available within six months of publication. In a memo to members seen by the LJ Academic Newswire, Association of American Publishers (AAP) president Pat Schroeder revealed details of a Tuesday phone conversation with NIH director Elias Zerhouni, in which Zerhouni reported that the proposed NIH policy would "encourage public access as soon as possible within a 12 month period," with compliance to be "voluntary." That is a major shift from NIH’s initial policy draft, which proposed that all research funded entirely or in part by the NIH be made freely, publicly available in PubMed Central, the NIH’s online repository, within six months of publication, unless publication costs were funded by the NIH, in which case the research would be made immediately available. The latest policy language remains unconfirmed.

However, should NIH recommend voluntary submission to PubMed Central within a 12-month period, that would be a major victory for publishers, who have strongly criticized the NIH’s original policy as radical and potentially harmful to publishers, scientific societies, and researchers. Schroeder also reported that Zerhouni noted that NIH received over 6300 comments on the proposed policy, a large number, most of which were supportive of the NIH’s position. Supporters of the NIH plan, meanwhile, expressed uneasiness over the developments. "If reports about the policy are true, it is either a modest step in the right direction, or a case of NIH not living up to its full responsibility to American taxpayers," Johnson wrote in an email memo. "A year from now, if most NIH research is available in PubMed Central soon after publication, then the policy will have succeeded. But to achieve a favorable outcome, NIH must provide strong signals to grantees about its expectation that research should be available to the public as soon as possible."
Library Journal Academic Newswire, January 13, 2005

The Nature Publishing Group announced that effective immediately, their authors "will be encouraged to submit the author’s version of the accepted, peer-reviewed manuscript to their relevant funding body’s archive, for release six months after publication." In addition, authors will also be encouraged to archive "their version of the manuscript" in their institution’s repositories and on their personal web sites, also six months after the original publication. Nature officials said the move was made to "extend the reach of scientific communications, and to meet the needs of authors and the evolving policies of funding agencies that may wish to archive the research they fund." For more information on the policy, visit:
http://npg.nature.com/npg/servlet/Content?data=xml/05_news.xml&style=xml/05_news.xsl
Library Journal Academic Newswire, January 11, 2005

Excerpt: “The U.S. Treasury Department ruled on Wednesday that trade embargoes do not restrict publishing, so American publishers, including scholarly journals and university presses, do not have to apply for a license if they wish to edit or publish works by authors in Cuba, Iran, or Sudan. The ruling, which did not mention any other embargoed countries, came two years after the department was first asked to clarify whether trade embargoes apply to publishing, and seemingly contradicts several interim decisions. Publishers considered the decision a major victory. The ruling, by the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, known as OFAC, allows such activities as substantive editing, payment of royalties, adding photographs, and collaborating with authors in embargoed countries — "all the things they said before were not allowed," said Marc H. Brodsky, who is executive director of the American Institute of Physics, which publishes 11 journals, and chairman of the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers….Although the ruling continues to prohibit transactions with the governments of Cuba, Iran, and Sudan, it specifies that the restrictions do not apply to the countries’ "academic and research institutions and their personnel." Mr. Brodsky said it was unclear how the regulation would affect a research branch of one of the countries’ governments, such as an equivalent of the National Institutes of Health.’”

Lila Guterman, Treasury Department Removes Restrictions on U.S. Publications by Authors in Embargoed Countries, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 16, 2004

Open Access News, Dec. 17, 2004 http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html

BBC Radio 4 broadcasted “ Publish or Be Damned” on December 21, 2004. From the BBC web page: “Scientific publishing is undergoing a revolution, with scientists and policy makers fed up that valuable research is being locked away in expensive subscription only journals. Now, writers of the material are launching their own competing journals and giving away the results for free. But not everyone is happy. In Publish or be Dammed, Richard Black examines each side of the debate and assesses the likely consequences for science.” To listen to the broadcast: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/publishorbedamned.shtml
Open Access News, Dec. 20, 2004.

Matthew Cockerill and John Enderby, “ Internet Upstarts v Traditional Publishers,” Financial Times, November 25, 2004. (Two arguments, pro and con on OA).

Pro: Quoting from Matthew Cockerill (technical director and co-founder of BioMed Central): “In the UK alone, billions of pounds of tax-payers’ money are spent annually on research, so the government might be expected to take a prudent interest in how the resulting journal articles are published, archived and made accessible. Surprisingly, though, copyright to publicly funded research articles is routinely signed over to publishers, who then sell limited, subscription-based access back to the scientific community. The cost of publishing a scientific research article is a tiny fraction of what it costs to do the research in the first place; yet publishers end up controlling access to the findings….A recent UK parliamentary committee report urged the government to help expand access to the results of research. But the government response was cautious and skeptical, and was concerned primarily with defending the interests of the traditional publishing industry. This has been perceived by some as a blow to the "open access" movement, but in fact open access, in the UK at least, has never been stronger….Similarly, open access publishing will not sound the death knell for scientific societies that publish traditional journals. In fact, far-sighted societies, including the National Academy of Sciences in the US, recognise that open access better serves their members’ needs and are moving their funding model away from dependence on surpluses from journal publishing. If a scientific society is genuinely serving its members’ needs, there is no reason why such a transition should be problematic.”

Con: Quoting from John Enderby (vice-president of the Royal Society): “There is no reason why current publishing practices, which cover costs through library subscriptions, cannot be adapted and developed to fulfill these open access aims. Many journals, including those of the Royal Society, are already adapting and others will follow suit. The open access movement has put added pressure on journals to examine current practices, and that input is welcome in influencing developments. But this is only part of a more fundamental, long-running approach in which good publishers are responsive to the changing needs of authors, readers and librarians….Learned societies, including the Royal Society, rely on revenues from publishing to fund activities that benefit science, such as funding researchers and undertaking science communication programmes….For wider public access around the world it is possible to maintain free online archives and the Royal Society, along with many others, makes its papers free after 12 months. If the content of papers is of significant public interest it can be made available free of charge on publication.”
Open Access News, Nov. 26, 2004 http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html

With the National Institutes of Health’s plan to open up access to the research endorsed by Congress and with implementation discussions under way, a nascent collective of commercial STM publishers and medical groups are presenting a plan of their own for increased access. The coalition effort, under the moniker patientINFORM, includes the top commercial STM publishers Elsevier, Springer, and Wiley, plus the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and American Diabetes Association, among others. The group plans a spring web launch (www.patientinform.org) and will offer a portion of research on cancer, diabetes and heart disease for free, as well as commentary and other links to information sources. SPARC director Rick Johnson–a member of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, which supports the NIH proposal–cautiously praised the new program but raised questions. "This one is too little too late," Johnson said. "It is ironic that this limited experiment has only now emerged after a majority of public interest and patient advocates already have weighed in to support the NIH enhanced public access program. The purpose, scope and timing of this development are all questionable at best."

Wiley spokesperson Susan Spilka denied that the proposal was an attempt to detract from the NIH proposal. Spilka called it "a parallel development that addresses the same concerns" and said that discussions about the program began 18 months ago. She acknowledged, however, that the announcement was "accelerated so at it can be considered an alternative to the NIH proposal." She asserted that patientINFORM would be more effective than the NIH proposal at getting useful research information to the public "because it couples raw research with interpretive materials aimed at consumers." Indeed, one key criticism of the NIH proposal by publishers is that much of the research published in specialized journals is aimed strictly at other professional researchers and would not be understood by most lay readers. The NIH plan, they argue, would therefore cut disproportionately into publishers’ journal subscriptions by making the contents of their journals freely available to researchers without providing a maximum benefit to the general public. Spilka said that, once up and running, patientINFORM would continue to expand the scope of the research it offers, adding publishers and more patient health associations.

Johnson acknowledged that any effort to further free research should be welcomed. He argued, however, that the effort should not detract from the NIH effort, which he called "the gold standard" for making taxpayer-supported research accessible. "If patientINFORM is public relations masquerading as good policy, then the public will be the losers."

Library Journal Academic Newswire, December 14, 2004

Creative Commons has named John Wilbanks to be the first director of Science Commons ( http://science.creativecommons.org) Excerpt from John Borland’s story in News.com: ‘ "Wilbanks’ addition as leader of the new Science Commons branch…marks a very exciting new phase, as the Creative Commons model is tested in uncharted areas of intellectual endeavor," Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School professor and organization founder, said in a statement….A posting on the group’s Web site says its board of directors had been considering moving into the area of science almost since inception but that it did not initially have the "expertise or technical capacity" to enter that realm. An intellectual-property system that allows sharing between scientists is particularly important, given research grants that often make results proprietary, as well as recent international changes in patent law that expand the scope of data protection, the group said. The "commons" approach could help introduce needed flexibility, it added. "Right at the historical moment, when we have the technologies to permit worldwide availability and distributed processing of scientific data…we are busy locking up that data and slapping legal restrictions on transfer," the Creative Commons site says. "Judicious balance is needed. The tendency to claim that property rights are never the answer, or that openness always solves all problems, must be avoided." Science Commons officially launched on January 1, 2005.
Open Access News 11/11/04