APPENDIX 1
Memorandum from the Geological Society
of London
The Geological Society of London was founded
in 1807 and has been in continuous existence for the last 197
years. It plays a key role in fostering the development of the
Earth sciences in the UK, disseminating the results of new research
in the geosciences, and the education of the broader public. It
is particularly active in encouraging co-operation with a range
of international bodies with similar intentions. The Geological
Society is a registered UK charity (No 210161).
A key part of the Society's activities is the
publication of Earth science research findings in the form of
books and peer-reviewed journals, and to this end a publishing
arm was established in 1989, based in Bath, UK. The Society owns
and publishes the following journals:
— Journal of the Geological Society.
— Quarterly Journal of Engineering
Geology and Hydrogeology.
— Petroleum Geoscience (co-owned with
the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers).
— Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment
and Analysis (co-owned with the Association of Exploration Geochemists).
In addition it publishes and distributes the
following journals on behalf of other learned societies:
— Journal of Micropalaeontology (owned
by The Micropalaeontological Society).
— Scottish Journal of Geology (owned
by the Glasgow and Edinburgh Geological Societies).
— Proceedings of the Geologists Association
(owned by the Geologists Association).
— Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological
Society (owned by the Yorkshire Geological Society).
The Society also publishes 25-30 books each
year, with peer-reviewed content broadly equivalent to the journals
in terms of both level and standard.
In all, then, the Society publishes around
12,000 pages per year of primary science research results.
Any surpluses generated from this activity are
either reinvested in the publishing programme or returned to the
Society to further its activities in the support of the Earth
sciences and the scientists who work in the field.
As well as publishing this wide range of Earth
science content the Society also maintains a world-class collection
of geoscientific literature in its Burlington House library. The
library is used by academics, consultants and industrial geologists,
and is an invaluable source of material when many other libraries
have cut back their collections. The library purchases a significant
quantity of books and journals annually and so the Society is,
quite literally, an information publisher and consumer—a
position common in the not-for profit and society sectors.
The Society has over 9,000 Fellows working principally
in the engineering, water and environmental sectors as well as
the petroleum industry and academia. Most rely on peer-reviewed
journals, including (but not exclusively) the Society's own titles
for research, technical know-how and key aspects of Continuing
Professional Development.
INTRODUCTION TO
THE SUBMISSION
This submission focuses on three key elements
of the enquiry's remit:
— What impact do publishers' current
policies on pricing and provision of scientific journals, particularly
"big deal schemes", have on libraries and the teaching
and research communities they serve?
— What action should Government, academic
institutions and publishers be taking to promote a competitive
market in scientific publications?
These first two elements will be covered together.
— What are the consequences of increasing
numbers of open-access journals, for example for the operation
of the Research Assessment Exercise and other selection processes?
Should the Government support such a trend and, if so, how?
The submission is written from the perspective
of a not-for-profit organisation that, in broad terms, recognises
the interests of Earth scientists as being essentially at one
with its own. The Society is under no obligation to generate a
profit to return to investors, and its only interest is the furtherance
of the geosciences.
Questions 1 & 2
What impact do publishers' current policies
on pricing and provision of scientific journals, particularly
"big deal schemes", have on libraries and the teaching
and research communities they serve?
and
What action should government, academic institutions
and publishers be taking to promote a competitive market in scientific
publications?
It is taken as understood that for many years
journal prices have risen faster than library funding, and that
there has been a consequent squeeze on journal spending within
libraries. Commonly known as the "serials crisis", the
effects of this escalation in the costs of maintaining library
journal collections has led to real changes in recent years with
many libraries joining forces and forming buying consortia in
order to exert additional leverage in their negotiations with
publishers; while the bigger commercial publishers with large
number of journal titles in their portfolios have bundled many
of their titles together into packages that seem to offer relative
value for money.
In the past two or three years libraries are
starting to see the downside the arrangements entered into. On
the one hand many of the new titles included in the bundles to
which the libraries did not previously have access have turned
out not to be useful. The subject matter is not core to their
users, or may even be in fields not represented in the university's
academic faculties.
In parallel to this the subscription prices
of these bundles are rising, but the agreements signed by libraries
contain tough penalty clauses in the case of cancellation. Libraries
now find themselves bound into deals whereby they are paying ever
more substantial amounts of money for journal packages that contain
titles they do not even want.
To make matters worse, the rising price of bundles
consumes an ever-greater proportion of library budgets and put
increasing pressure on remaining subscriptions to journal titles
from smaller publishers which are not bundled, but which are used
by researchers and are regarded as core titles. Cornell University,
for example, now claim to be in the position where over 20% of
their total library expenditure is spent on the fewer than 2%
of journal titles they subscribe to which are published by Elsevier.
The same factors affect universities on an international basis,
with restrictive cancellation clauses making it difficult for
libraries to adjust as required.
The Society's response to this situation is
as follows:
— The Geological Society, in common
with many other learned societies, has a different relationship
with the community it serves than a commercial publisher will,
in that its members constitute the very same community that its
journals seek to serve. Given the closeness of this relationship
between journal provider and user the Society has always tried
to keep its prices low and its annual increases affordable. It
has been highly conscious of the effects of the "serials
crisis" and has tried to avoid making this situation worse.
— The Geological Society regards large-scale
commercial journal bundling as detrimental to the interests of
scientists, and in 2003 has witnessed the first signs that even
the larger libraries are starting to rebel. (Wholesale cancellations
to Elsevier journals have been made by some of the larger North
American university libraries, and others in this country and
abroad are likely to follow suit.)
— It is the Geological Society's view
that libraries should have the freedom to buy the journal titles
of their choosing, and will always try to find ways of buying
as much as they can with their limited budgets. Some form of negotiation
with the big commercial publishers will, therefore, always be
part of their approach to journal acquisition. However, the Geological
Society does feel that the current situation is highly distorting
of the journals market and that regulatory forces should be brought
to bear to prevent the very largest commercial publishers from
manipulating the markets to their own advantage—and the
eventual disadvantage of both the smaller publishers and the communities
that they serve.
— The Geological Society believes that
large scale bundling of titles by the largest commercial publishers,
and the punitive nature of subscription cancellation clauses in
these agreements, forces many libraries into the acceptance of
spiralling subscription prices while forcing them to make cuts
in other, much needed journals. This is essentially anti-competitive,
and restricts libraries' choice to select titles on the basis
of need and quality.
— The Geological Society has responded
to the stated preferences of librarians for integrated journal
collections by joining forces with five other Earth science societies
and one Earth science institute to develop an aggregated bundle
of online journals specifically focused on the Earth sciences—GeoScienceWorld.
This unique collection of journal titles will start with 30 or
so titles drawn mostly from those published by the founding societies,
but growing over a number of years to include a large number of
other Earth science titles from a range of not-for-profit sources.
Such an aggregate will be electronically enhanced to meet the
researchers needs for searching and linking, while offering excellent
value for money. Because of its clear subject focus, GeoScienceWorld
is unlikely to contain journals of total irrelevance to its users.
Question 3
What are the consequences of increasing numbers
of open-access journals, for example for the operation of the
research assessment exercise and other selection processes? Should
the Government support such a trend and, if so, how?
The move to electronic availability was the
big journals issues of the 1980s; journal bundling, the "big
deal" and the growth of library consortia came to prominence
in the 1990s; and now open access is becoming the major delivery
issue for the new decade. Open access has been widely trumpeted
as the only fair and just way of promoting the findings of research
scientists in such a way that society can derive the maximum benefit
from the scientific activity in its midst.
Organisations such as PLoS and, to a lesser
extent SPARC, have sustained impressive campaigns internationally
to win over the scientific community and, more recently, the public
at large, to the cause of open access. There are now several hundred
open access journals available, using a variety of funding models,
the most renowned being the recently launched PLoS Biology, available
in print and online.
However, within the journal publishing world
and, indeed, within the scientific community itself, there are
large numbers of individuals and organisations who see the move
towards open access as, at best, a mixed blessing—and, at
worst, a disastrous move which will shut down many journals and
cause irrevocable damage to the fabric of the scientific community.
In particular, many scientific Societies, whose role is to promote
science and scientists, may be severely damaged by the impact
on their journals.
At the heart of the open access argument is
the assertion that research is not only funded by government,
charity or industry, but must be paid for a second time when the
published results are bought by libraries and individuals. However
appealing this argument may seem it does ignore the fact that
the two payments (research funding and journals subscription)
are, in fact, for two totally separate processes. The research
process supports activities from which greater understanding derives;
the publishing process supports activities that validate those
findings to agreed standards, and then disseminates them to the
wider scientific community. The two processes rely on each other
but are essentially different.
The critical issue is that the publishing process
is not cost free and will have to be paid for by one means or
another. PLoS Biology's costs are currently met by author payments,
but the organisation's required investments are met from $11 million
of grant money, and are not sustained from the journal's income.
While this may be sustainable for a small number of prestigious
titles from a highly publicised and externally funded flagship
project, it will certainly not be viable for the journals publishing
industry as a whole.
The true cost of publishing articles in a sustainable
open access journal is still uncertain, and will vary according
to scientific discipline—but whether it is met from author
contributions or subscription income, the same level of overall
funding is required to meet journal costs, financial investment
and—in the case of commercial publishers—generate
a profit.
It is perhaps surprising that those organisations
closest to the scientific community—the learned societies—are
not whole-heartedly supportive of open access. There are, however,
specific and serious consequences for societies that have a publishing
arm and publish journals as part of the benefit of membership.
If free or discounted subscription to these journals is one of
the benefits of society membership, open access will negate this
reason for membership—if you can read the journal for free,
why join the Society? The likely decline in Society membership
would be a fatal blow for many societies resulting in their closure.
Many societies publish a small number of high quality, highly
regarded journals and the consequent loss of these titles—or
their sale to large commercial publishers interested in the expansion
of their journal lists—would be to the detriment of science.
Furthermore, the closure of the societies themselves would lead
to the loss of the support, service and leadership that these
organisations have provided.
In this context it is important to understand
the distribution of ownership, and the possible consequences of
open access on this distribution—and to ask whether such
changes would work to the benefit of the scientific community.
The Association of Learned and Society Publishers report (ALPSP
Alert 79) that of the 21122 active or forthcoming peer-reviewed
journals featured in Ulrich's periodicals database, over 50% are
thought to be published by not-for-profit organisations.
However, Morgan Stanley's 2002 report into the
journal publishing industry (Scientific Publishing, Knowledge
is Power, September 2002) reveals that the top five journals publishers
are all commercial and own 37% of ISI-rated STM journal titles.
The largest of these, Elsevier, owns 18% of the titles and 25%
of articles published.
It is clear, then, that should open access force
significant numbers of journals owned by not-for-profit publishers
into the hands of the commercial giants, the imbalance of power
will shift even further towards the commercial publishers. A movement
intended to give ownership back to the scientific community may
simply end up delivering unprecedented power into the hands of
commercial interests.
The Society's response to this situation is
as follows:
— The Geological Society believes that
science is best served by a diverse range of independently published
journal titles that thrive only on the basis of quality. Contributors
of leading research findings choose their journal for publication
for a variety of reasons, foremost amongst which is historical
reputation of the journal title.
— The Geological Society maintains
that the process of research and the process of publishing are
quite different and separate. Publishers add significant value
to research results by ensuring quality standards via peer review
and copyediting, ease of use via design and typesetting, awareness
via promotional activity and distribution via the internet or
the postal system. In addition, value is added to electronic versions
by the integration of searching and linking facilities. All of
these constitute a chain of activities essential to effective
end-use.
— The Geological Society believes that
electronic-only publishing may ultimately result in declining
standards of journal content, as the current financial disincentive
to publishing excessive paper pages is less relevant in the electronic
world. If the financial impact of publishing more papers is lessened,
there will be a downward pressure on the quality criteria for
acceptance or rejection of submitted articles.
— The Geological Society acknowledges
that there are a range of ways of funding the publication of such
journals with different funding models, according to journal type,
scientific field, subscriber base and so on. However, whichever
way a journal is funded certain costs will always need to be met.
— The Geological Society regards open
access as an interesting new development in publishing, and believes
it may be appropriate as part of the mix of journal availability.
However, different scientific disciplines with different systems
and levels of funding, are likely to have greater of lesser degrees
of success with open access (compare medicine to mineralogy, for
example)
— The Geological Society believes that
the most important consideration in terms of journal availability
and library choice is that the regulatory environment encourages
diversity and sustainability across the whole journal publishing
industry. Any changes to this regulatory framework should bear
in mind the possible broader consequences to the key agencies
in the promotion of scientific research.
January 2004
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