Scholarly Communication Issues

Scholarly communication has been defined by the Association of Research Libraries as “the formal and informal processes by which the research and scholarship of faculty… are created, evaluated, edited, formatted, distributed, organized, made accessible, archived, used, and transformed.” The formal system of scholarly communication is publishing. There are many people involved in the publishing process, including the following:

• Faculty, who build upon previous knowledge and create new knowledge which they give to publishers in the form of journal articles and other publications
• Publishers, who manage peer review and editorial processes, and print and distribute publications
• Libraries, which acquire, organize and provide access to information resources and preserve them for the future

The publishing industry has changed in many ways over the centuries. Just a few of the milestones are the invention of papyrus around 2800 BC, the invention of movable type by Johan Gutenberg in 1455 which enabled books to be mass produced in a cost-effective way, the publication of the first medical journals in 1665 (the Journal des Scavans and the Philosophical Transactions), the widespread integration of personal computers into the workplace in the 1980s, and the invention of the Internet and WWW in the late 1980’s.

Many people are now saying that the currently system of scholarly publishing has major problems and needs to be fixed. Three of the major problems are that the system is not taking full advantage of the Internet to make the process of scholarly publishing move at a much faster pace, the system is too costly, and it is too complex and confusing for users. I discussed some of these problems in my article in the previous issue of this newsletter. In this article, I will discuss an initiative to improve the scholarly publishing process called open access publishing, which seems to be gaining popularity around the world.

Open access publishing is commonly defined as including the following characteristics:

• it involves works for which authors expect no pay (such as journal articles)
• articles are made available for free on the Internet and are permanently archived in a standard electronic format
• users are permitted to use the works freely without having to pay copyright fees
• authors retain their copyright and use of their works must include proper citations

Some of the advantages of open access publishing include the following:

• expanded access to information
• more equitable access for scientists and the public
• expanded impact of research
• more efficient and cost-effective publishing

The current open access publishing models depend on publication fees for their support. In other words, the cost of publication is being shifted from the end of the publishing process, where libraries and individuals pay subscriptions for the journals, to near the beginning of the publication process, where authors or institutions or funding agencies pay publication fees per article. This shift to payment for publication rather than access allows access to be made available freely to anyone with an Internet connection.

A fairly comprehensive list of the nearly 800 journals currently being published by open access publishers can be found at www.doaj.org. Two of the most well-know open access publishers are BioMed Central (www.biomedcentral.com), which publishes over 100 journals, and Public Library of Science (www.plos.org), which just published its first journal last October.

There is growing support for the principles of open access publishing. Examples of support from groups of scientists and organizations include the Budapest Open Access Initiative (www.soros.org/openaccess/), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethesda.htm), and the Berlin Declaration (www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlin_declaration.pdf). Library associations, such as the Medical Library Association (US and Canada) and the International Federation of Library Associations, and the largest private funders of biomedical research in the US and the United Kingdom (the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Wellcome Trust) have expressed their support for the open access publishing movement as well. Many libraries, and some institutions and agencies, now pay for institutional memberships in BioMed Central and Public Library of Science to allow scientists from their institutions to get publication fee waivers or discounts.

Political support for open access publishing has been cautious. The Public Access to Science Act, which would require that researchers receiving a significant amount of federal funding to support their research publish the results under an open access model, failed to win approval from Congress last year. However, Congress requested that the National Library of Medicine investigate the publishing situation and prepare a report with recommendations for improvements. The UK House of Commons also is currently investigating the existing publishing system.

Responses to the Open Access publishing initiative from existing publishers and vendors of online products have been varied. Some for-profit publishers have said that the system is working well and does not need to be changed. A group of 48 non-profit professional associations and societies in the US who publish journals recently issued a document commonly know as the DC Principles which outlines their stand on the issue (www.dcprinciples.org). The Principles say that the societies and associations provide a valuable service by publishing journals and that it is ok for them to make a profit on their journals as long as they continue to use the profits to support other activities of their associations, such as grants and mentoring programs. They also say that they are already providing several forms of free access, such as free access for people in developing countries and free online access in the US after a certain period of time (usually 3 or 6 months or a year). However, we have found the embargo periods are too long for some important journals, so we have to subscribe to the journals to provide immediate access. The debate over whether professional associations and societies should make a profit from journal subscriptions paid for by libraries in order to support mentoring programs, grants, and other association activities will probably continue for quite some time.

There are some questions and concerns about open access publishing, at least some of which remain to be answered.

• Are open access publishing models financially viable? The cost of publishing a journal article, even by an open access publisher, is estimated to be more than the publication fees currently being charged by open access publishers. Different financial models are being experimented with in an effort to find reasonable and financially sound models.
• Who should pay the publication fees? Should it be the authors, their libraries, their institutions, their research funding sources…? Some libraries, including the UAMS Library, are currently paying institutional memberships in BioMed Central and PLoS, but library budgets will probably not be able to cover all publication fees if open access publishing becomes widespread.
• What about those authors whose articles are accepted but cannot afford to pay the publication fees? Current open access publishers say the articles will be published regardless of an author’s ability to pay.
• What about promotion and tenure evaluations and grant reviews? Will articles published in open access journals receive credit in evaluations? Supporters of open access say that journal articles should be judged by the content, not the title of the journal in which they are published. Many researchers say they are reluctant to take a chance on open access publishing when their careers are at stake.
• Do open access journals have adequate peer review processes or are they just vanity press journals in which anyone who can afford to pay will be published? BioMed Central and PLoS have stringent peer review processes, and decisions about acceptance of articles are not related to the amount of money someone can pay to be published.
• How will association and society activities be financed if their journals become open access journals which do not make a profit?

Even if you think these issues do not affect you because you do not submit articles for publication, remember that the progress of biomedical research and your ability to access information you might need is dependent on an efficient and effective publishing system. It is important for researchers and consumers of biomedical information to be aware of the issues involved and to participate in discussions about solutions to problems with the current publishing system. “Although the battle is being fought over subscription prices, what is really at stake…is the scientific process itself.” (New York Times, 12/8/98)

Mary L. Ryan,
Library Director