May 2nd, 2005 by UI Libraries
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May 2nd, 2005 by UI Libraries
Open access has evolved into one of the most contentious debates within the scientific community in recent years. During the past 18 months, the dialogue on how best to disseminate published research has been steadily gaining momentum. Advocates of open access argue that the public should be able to access all online scientific literature for free. They maintain that the public has a right to access the results of federally funded research supported by their tax dollars. Opponents insist that the current subscription-based system does allow the public access to the literature, albeit not for free. They argue that subscriptions are needed to support the costs associated with journal publication and online archiving.
Richard J. Roberts, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, is the director of bioinformatics at New England Biolabs in Beverly, Mass. He is also a senior executive editor of Nucleic Acids Research, which is published by Oxford University Press. Roberts, along with 24 other Nobel Laureates, sent a letter to the members of Congress on Aug. 26, 2004, urging them to support free access to taxpayer-funded research. Arguing the other side of the issue is Peter Banks, publisher for the American Diabetes Association. Banks is currently on the steering committee for patientINFORM, a project aimed at providing more biomedical research along with interpretation and context to patients. The project is set to debut this spring. Banks is also president of the Society of National Association Publications, composed of 300 nonprofit publishers. http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/8310/8310openaccess.html
Chemical & Engineering News 3/7/05
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May 1st, 2005 by UI Libraries
Abstract: The emergence of e–journals brought a great change in scholarly communication and in the behavior of scholars. However, the importance of scholars’ behavior in the pricing of scientific journal has been largely ignored in the recent debate between libraries and publishers over site license practices and pricing schemes. Stanford’s survey results indicate that sharply increasing costs are the main reason for individual subscription cancellation, driving users to rely on library or other institutional subscriptions. Libraries continue to be a vital information provider in the electronic era and their bargaining power in the market and the importance of roles in scholarly communication will be increased by branding and a strong relationship with users. Publishers’ strategy for thriving in the electronic era is not to lose personal subscribers. Cooperation among the three sectors — scholars, libraries, and publishers — promises optimal results for each sector more than ever.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_3/jeon/index.html
First Monday, volume 10, number 3 (March 2005)
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May 1st, 2005 by UI Libraries
In the worst case of scientific fakery to come to light in two decades, a top obesity researcher who long worked at the University of Vermont admitted yesterday that he fabricated data in 17 applications for federal grants to make his work seem more promising, helping him win nearly $3 million in government funding. Eric T. Poehlman, a leading specialist on metabolic changes during aging, acknowledged that he altered and made up research results from 1992 to 2002, including findings published in medical journals that overstated the effect of menopause on women’s health. Under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Poehlman, 49, will be barred for life from receiving federal funding, pay back $180,000, and plead guilty to a criminal charge of fraud that could bring jail time. He agreed to ask scientific journals to retract and correct 10 articles they published by him.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/03/18/researcher_admits_fraud_in_grant_data/
Boston.com News (Boston Globe), March 18, 2005
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May 1st, 2005 by UI Libraries
Blackwell Publishing has announced the launch of a new service, Online Open, which offers authors the opportunity to make their articles freely available to all users of the internet in perpetuity on payment of a publication fee. The new Online Open service will be on trial through to the end of 2006. During this period, authors of accepted articles will have the option to pay a fee of $2,500 or £1,250 (plus VAT where applicable), which will ensure that their article is made freely accessible to all via Blackwell’s online journals platform Blackwell Synergy. Online Open articles will be published to exactly the same high standards as subscription-based articles, following the full peer-review process and benefiting from the same production procedures and online features. Online Open articles will also appear in the print edition of journals with an indicator pointing to the free access online.
The subscription prices for journals participating in the Online Open trial will be adjusted according to the number of author-pays articles that each journal expects to publish in the following year. Blackwell’s subscription prices take into account any increase in the amount of material we expect to publish in the journal in the next year. The company will continue to use this information in setting pricing but we will only account for material published under the traditional publishing model. Any articles published under the new Online Open model will be excluded from this calculation as their costs will have been paid by the author or the author’s funding body. Blackwell Publishing is consulting with the societies for whom it publishes on whether they wish to be included in the trial of Online Open. The company will issue an initial list of those journals participating within the next two months and will add any other journals as societies choose to join. Blackwell expects that most of the initial journals in the trial will be in biology or medicine, subjects where there is likely to be funding for the author-pays model. http://www.econtentmag.com/?ArticleID=7678
E-Content, 3/1/05
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May 1st, 2005 by UI Libraries
An editorial in Scientific American supports Creative Commons for Science; excerpt: ‘[T]he framers of the Constitution always intended to provide owners of creative works with only limited monopolies, ensuring that the public gets the right to fashion new works from old. Over the years, however, Congress, sometimes at the behest of media companies, has erected immense barriers to derivative works by extending repeatedly both the length and the scope of copyright protection….Copyright in its current form fails to strike a balance between the extremes of allowing total control over every work—"all rights reserved"—and an anarchic system in which pirates steal wantonly without recompense to owners. Overly strong property rights can threaten the Internet as a medium capable of fostering dynamic interchange of ideas. In 2001 Stanford University legal scholar Lawrence Lessig set about righting this imbalance by becoming the leading force behind Creative Commons, a nonprofit group that furnishes a much needed middle ground that lets owners give up some but not all of their rights….The Massachusetts Institute of Technology exploits the licenses to give free access to excellent online course materials. Creative Commons has started a Science Commons effort that will even explore the open licensing of technology contained in some patents. The Public Library of Science already takes advantage of one of the licenses to specify the conditions under which scientific journal articles are made available free of charge. The Internet, as a universal publisher of sorts, needs to be more than an outlet for commercial interests. Nascent communities of artists, scientists and nonprofits want some way to share and rework one another’s intellectual output without the enormous legal burdens that come with increasingly draconian rights management. The entertainment industry has been largely silent on this issue—its idea of innovation having been the launching of lawsuits against 10-year-olds to punish music pirating. In this environment, the introduction of Creative Commons’s middle path of "some rights reserved" is surely a welcome arrival.’ Open Access News 2/14/05
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=000D3F62-378C-11E7-B78C83414B7F0000
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May 1st, 2005 by UI Libraries
Although reasonable people can undoubtedly disagree about aspects of open-access publishing — generally speaking, making journal articles available online at no charge — one point is beyond dispute: The concept is no longer merely a theoretical possibility. It is time to move beyond rehashing tired arguments about whether open access poses a threat to publishers, professional societies, or research budgets. We should begin to discuss how best to use what open access gives us: the unfettered availability of scholarly literature.
The strongest evidence that open access to peer-reviewed articles is here to stay, at least in the life sciences, comes from two developments: the increasing number of agencies and foundations that have begun to require or encourage free online access to publications based on research they have helped finance; and the growing number of journals that allow authors to make their papers freely available. This month the National Institutes of Health announced that it will ask scientists whose research it supports to deposit articles about that research in PubMed Central, the free-to-use archive run by the NIH. Some prominent journals have begun offering authors the option to pay, through their grants, an open-access surcharge to make their papers freely available immediately upon publication. And the Public Library of Science (our employer), a nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians, has established new journals that offer free online access to their full contents, and whose articles have begun to attract the attention of the international media.
Although questions remain, quite a few experts are clearly betting that open access will not precipitate the collapse of scholarly publishing. In fact, the case could be made that a consensus in favor of open access is emerging among scientific and policy-making institutions — as well as individual scientists — around the world. ExpIicit endorsements have come in the past year and a half from the Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s largest nonprofit supporters of biomedical research; several United Nations initiatives; and dozens of prominent research organizations.
Read the article at: http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i24/24b01301.htm
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May 1st, 2005 by UI Libraries
Columbia University librarian Jim Neal this week applauded the "bold support" offered by the University Senate in unanimously adopting a resolution in favor of open access. The resolution, introduced by the Senate’s Committee on Libraries and Academic Computing at an April meeting, resolved to "put on record its support for the principle of open access," to urge the university "advance new models for scholarly publishing that will promote open access," and to urge "the scholars of Columbia University to play a part in these open-access endeavors in their various capacities as authors, readers, editors, referees, and members of scientific boards and learned associations." Neal and Columbia have been vocal supporters of open access. For the full text of the resolution, visit:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/news/libraries/2005/2005-04-21.open_access.html.
Library Journal Academic Newswire, The Publishing Report, April 28, 2005
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May 1st, 2005 by UI Libraries
"The scholarly communications market, which exploded last year with headline-grabbing news of research libraries balking at publisher deals, governments investigating the scientific publishing system, and reformers touting author-pays business models, has settled into an uneasy state of relative calm. On the surface, not a lot has changed. Fleets of salespeople continue to push bundles of journal content from the big STM (scientific, technical, and medical) publishers, and budget-starved libraries continue to cut journals they can’t afford. Beneath the surface, however, the tide of change runs strong."
The article includes tables. A sampling of statistics:
Average cost of a health sciences journal in 2005: $1081 (up 38% since 2001)
Average cost of a chemistry journal in 2005: $2868 (up 34% since 2001)
Average cost of a biology journal in 2005: $1494 (up 37% since 2001)
Average number of health sciences titles published 2001-2005: 1217
2006 cost projections for titles in Science Citation Index: 7.5% price increase
Read the whole article by By Lee C. Van Orsdel & Kathleen Born:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA516819
Library Journal, 4/15/2005
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May 1st, 2005 by UI Libraries
Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier has posted a 1.7% increase in full-year profits. The company, the world’s largest publisher of science journals, said on Thursday, adjusted pre-tax profit was £1.03 billion, up from £1.01 billion a year earlier. Analysts on average expected an adjusted pre-tax profit of £1.02 billion, with estimates ranging from £998 million to £1.05 billion, according to a poll of 16 brokerages by Reuters Research. Turnover slipped to £4.81 billion from £4.93 billion due in part to the weak U.S. dollar, but was up 5% at constant currencies. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050217/325/fco91.html
BookTrade.info, 2/17/05, Reuters
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