APPENDIX 89
Memorandum from the Museums, Libraries
and Archives Council (MLA)
1. INTRODUCTION
The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
(MLA), formerly known as Resource, is the key strategic agency
working with and on behalf of museums, libraries and archives,
advising the Government of policy priorities for all aspects of
this sector. It is funded from the vote of the Department for
Culture, Media and Sport.
MLA's Strategic Plan for 2004-7, "Investing
in Knowledge", sets out a vision that will enable every citizen
to become directly involved in exploring the past and inventing
the future, with new routes to museum, library and archive collections,
and universal access to the knowledge and information that people
need.
Our commitment to access to knowledge and information
means we are able and willing to input to the Science and Technology
Committee's enquiry into scientific publications and to help ensure
that researchers, teachers and students have easy and fair access
to scientific publications. This response is heavily influenced
by a recent and extensive consultation process which we carried
out (the Wider Information and Library Issues Project) and has
been consulted on with the Advisory Council on Libraries, which
advises the Minister for Media and Heritage at the Department
for Culture, Media and Sport on library policy and development.
2. THE WIDER
INFORMATION AND
LIBRARY ISSUES
PROJECT
In November of 2003 we published a report of
a consultation process across the whole of the library world.
The report is available on our website, www.mla.gov.uk.
The consultation was managed by MLA in partnership
with the British Library (BL) and the Chartered Institute of Library
and Information Practitioners (CILIP), the professional body for
librarians and information workers. The project was overseen by
a group composed of the Chief Executives of all three bodies and
is known as WILIP (the Wider Information and Library Issues Project).
During the consultation process, we spoke to
representatives of 77 organisations (200 people were involved
in all) right across the library world. We identified thirteen
types of library and information service as follows:
1. Higher Education libraries;
2. Further Education libraries;
5. National libraries eg the British Library;
6. Corporate library and information services;
8. Research institution libraries;
10. Voluntary sector libraries;
11. Cultural and heritage libraries;
12. Prison libraries; and
13. Other information services eg tourist
information centres
(We estimate there are between 20,000 to 30,000
libraries in all in the UK.)
Significantly from the point of view of this
Enquiry, we also spoke to representatives of the "content
providers", who were taken to include:
— Digital and other media publishers;
and
— Distributors and other intermediaries
(booksellers, wholesalers, library book suppliers, subscription
agents, aggregators, etc.)
The consultation interviews focussed on the
issues confronting the respondents, their vision for the future
and how this might be achieved. In the case of content providers,
it was beyond the scope of the project to attempt an analysis
of the whole of this large and complex sector—instead we
concentrated on those issues that arise at the interface between
content providers and libraries.
The WILIP report provides a rich and reliable
picture of the issues affecting libraries at the present time
and our response to the questions posed by the Enquiry draws on
the views expressed to us during the consultation.
Given our perspective (ie that of the librarian
and of the publisher/librarian interface), we are restricting
our comments to responses to two of the questions posed (see 4
and 5 below).
3. THE WILIP
CONSULTATION AND
SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATION
Our consultation showed that for the overwhelming
majority of librarians interviewed, whatever type of library they
came from, improved access to information was at the heart of
their vision for the future—as the report puts it, their
vision for their users was "seamless and unfettered access
to information resources at the time and place of their choosing
and in the form that they want, no matter where the resources
were located". Also, they wanted every library, whatever
its type, to be a "gateway" to information held in any
other library—or, indeed, any archive, museum or other repository
of knowledge.
However, the existing reality leaves much to
be desired and the case of scholarly material in general and scientific
publications in particular was mentioned often by respondents.
As one would expect, such concerns were expressed most frequently
by representatives of the HE community and national librarians,
but health librarians and research institutions were close behind
and related issues were raised by FE and Government libraries.
4. 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?
Given our perspective, we are not qualified
to discuss the impact of publishers' current policies on teaching
and research communities, but we certainly heard a great deal
during the WILIP consultation about librarians' perceptions of
the impact of publishers' policies and we heard the publishers'
side too.
INCREASING COSTS
According to the WILIP report, "The major
bone of contention between libraries and publishers is the increasing
cost of information, and this is most keenly felt with regard
to academic journals". For HE libraries, journal price inflation
and the cost of e-materials are eroding budgets for other materials,
such as learning texts and scholarly monographs. HE libraries
have formed purchasing consortia to negotiate better terms. However,
the benefits are being eroded by increasing user demand for high
cost digital collections of research and learning materials and
by publishers' practice of aggregating less popular journals into
the subscription packages to maintain income.
The 2002 Office of Fair Trading report, The
Market for scientific, technical and medical journals concluded
that, "There is evidence to suggest the market for STM journals
may not be not working well. Many commercial journal prices appear
high, at the expense of education and research institutions".
However, they concluded that it was not appropriate to intervene
in the market at this stage but instead to keep it under review
to see if technology and market forces, including initiatives
like SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources
Coalition) would bring the market more into balance.
But the prospect offered in the OFT report that
digital publishing might enable publishers cut costs and so meet
purchasers' demand for lower prices shows no sign of being fulfilled.
Publishers attribute this partly to ICT investment costs and partly
to operating costs that are higher than expected. What's more,
long-term accessibility concerns—centred around issues of
ownership and digital preservation—are leading libraries
to acquire both print and digital formats. VAT on digital formats
has also made it too expensive for libraries to contemplate going
over entirely to electronic storage and delivery.
According to the WILIP report, publishers see
the fundamental problem stemming from the increasing mismatch
between the growth of research output and the funds available
to libraries to acquire it. They are receiving more and more good
papers for publication, which leaves them with the options of
either increasing the size of journals—which makes them
more expensive—or publishing new journals—which again
adds to libraries' costs. This view is controversial. While librarians
accept there is an element of truth in these assertions, they
do not believe they justify what they perceive as the large margins
on journal publishing, especially for scientific, technical and
medical journals where the prices are much higher than in other
subjects and far outweigh the higher costs of colour printing
and complex mathematical character sets.
The perceived threat is that publishers and
the library community could end up in competition. Publishers
believe the value they add is underrated and that librarians do
not recognise that publishing is not just about aggregating content
but also involves editing, distribution, marketing and branding,
as well as the systems to support these functions. This is another
contested viewpoint. Librarians for their part would say that
they do recognise the functions of publishers, but that they believe
the value added by publishers is overrated. They would point to
the fact that publishers get the articles free of charge and are
then paid in advance for publishing them in the form of journal
subscriptions.
It is recognised that continuing journal price
inflation is pushing these issues higher and higher up a number
of agendas, particularly up the higher education agenda (viz the
Research Support Libraries Group report), which has led to initiatives
like SPARC. So far prestige titles have held their own, because
of their cachet for academic authors and the peer review system,
but there are concerns that the impact of "disintermediation"
could be considerable, if these initiatives take off and begin
to take business from academic journals. On the other hand publishers
believe that self-publishing schemes will prove expensive, and
academia may well find that they do not achieve the better value
they seek.
ALTERNATIVE ACADEMIC
PUBLISHING MODELS
The various models now being tried or suggested
are many and complex. The WILIP report refers in particular to
two.
The SPARC initiative (Scholarly Publishing &
Academic Resources Coalition) is gathering momentum. It is seeking
to create competitive alternatives to current high-priced commercial
journals and digital aggregations. This is being achieved through
partnerships with smaller publishers, developing new business
models and setting up portals to research information. In the
initial stages considerable effort is going into advocacy campaigns
aimed at stakeholder groups such as librarians, academic staff
and editorial boards. SPARC originated in North America through
the auspices of the Association of Research Libraries, but it
is expanding across the world largely through affiliate consortia
such as SPARC Europe. A number of new titles have already appeared,
and SPARC claims that it is having a knock-on effect on journal
pricing and is giving a stronger voice to the academics on editorial
boards in the running of the existing journals they oversee.
BioMed Central, launched in 2002, is another
example of an alternative approach to publishing. The business
model of this independent publishing house cum membership organisation
is based on charging authors to publish and then making the content
quickly and permanently available online to readers without charge.
NHS England has a membership agreement with BioMed Central.
The WILIP respondents from HE, health libraries
and the research institutions frequently referred to their hopes
for variants on the open-access model, but there were mixed views
on success so far.
OTHER ACCESS
ISSUES
It is important to remember that it is not just
pricing that is an issue between publishers and libraries. Other
challenges posed by digital publication include:
— Need for standardisation of licensing
terms;
— Continued access to issues of e-journals
already acquired after libraries cease subscribing to a title;
and
— Digital rights management
Publishers do not see it as their role to be
digital archivists, but they do recognise that any archiving and
preservation solution developed by libraries is likely to be costly,
which raises the question of how it will be paid for.
More standardisation of licensing terms for
e-materials is sought, especially where libraries serve different
groups of licensees. In HE libraries, managing licences often
requires a dedicated member of staff. A country-wide licence,
such as that negotiated for Canadian universities, is seen as
desirable by WILIP respondents and work on this is underway, particularly
in the health sector.
Finding an answer to providing continuing access
to already acquired issues of e-journals to which libraries have
ceased subscribing could also be difficult, since the upgrading
of publishers' and aggregators' systems would raise technical
barriers.
A digital rights management system is needed
in both the publishing media sector and in the library and information
domain. For instance it would help libraries keep track of what
rights they have to the use of digital material, thus overcoming
the problem many health libraries have in managing different licensing
agreements for different classes of users (eg academic or NHS).
COLLABORATION BETWEEN
PUBLISHERS AND
LIBRARIANS
While parts of the content provider sector might
appear to be in conflict with libraries, there are also flourishing
examples of collaboration.
— Name numbering is a prime example
of where the trade and libraries are working fruitfully together,
pooling expertise and developing schemes that can span both communities.
Being able to uniquely identify authors, editors, illustrators,
publishers etc is a necessary component of rights management systems
and will be especially important in digital rights management
(for which a standard is currently being developed by ISO's MPEG
group). Authority control in libraries will be made easier, and
the user will benefit from the more accurate retrieval of works
by the authors in whom s/he is interested.
— The question of standard measures
for user statistics in the electronic environment is another area
where collaboration is happening. Common standards of measurement
will inform the negotiations between publishers and libraries
over the pricing of licences. The Counter Group that brings together
organisations representing publishers and academic libraries is
looking at the feasibility of an international standard on user
statistics.
— A further area of collaboration is
the joint lobbying work by the Publishers Association, the Association
of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), CILIP,
EBLIDA, authors and others on the VAT on e-publications. Publishers
believe more articulate and co-ordinated lobbying is needed at
national and European level.
— On the issue of maintaining continuing
access to previous issues when libraries have ceased subscribing
to e-journals some strides are being made. For instance OCLC Inc
is working towards a system to manage access rights via a central
service. In other cases publishers are making their older archive
material available free of charge.
THE WAY
FORWARD
The way forward that publishers favour is to
maintain and develop the dialogue and joint activity between themselves
and libraries. Given the tension over journal pricing, e-journals
and self-publishing by the academic community, publishers think
it will be a challenge to keep working together with libraries,
but it is thought essential to maintain a constructive dialogue
in order to seek a balanced solution where users get what they
need at a price that the community can afford. For instance the
publishing arms of the learned societies believe there is a fundamental
mismatch over funding, and alternative economic models for the
publishing of research are needed urgently.
Some respondents saw the need for some organisation
to assume the role of catalyst, bringing bodies together on a
range of issues under an umbrella that has clout with government—with
the proviso that any such coalition must be for action, not just
talking. One of the key aims would be to persuade the government
to invest more in libraries—with rather more emphasis on
content than infrastructure—thought to be the underlying
factor in so many of the issues affecting the relationship between
content providers and libraries. Respondents thought Resource
(now MLA) might take on that role.
5. How effectively are the Legal Deposit Libraries
making available non-print scientific publications to the research
community, and what steps should they be taking in this respect?
Four of the Legal Deposit Libraries were involved
in WILIP and it was clear that they were facing real challenges
in providing access to non-print scientific publications. At a
general level, the problems that higher education libraries are
encountering over the volume of digital publishing, and the fact
that it is not replacing but supplementing print publication,
are even greater for the national libraries given their legal
deposit roles. First of all what should one aim to collect? Many
websites are a rich source of information across a very broad
field of human endeavour, but their often rapidly changing content
and ephemeral nature make it difficult to decide what is important
and what can be ignored. Again the sheer volume of data forces
difficult choices. On the one hand the national libraries want
to obtain as much material as they can to fulfil their collecting
responsibilities, but on the other hand they are having to cope
with the technical and resource issues largely unaided.
The two specific challenges mentioned most frequently
were restrictive licensing schemes that were creating significant
barriers to access and preservation of digital publications—a
pressing problem that needs speedy resolution so that long-term
access is assured. Trying to address these issues is especially
difficult given the level cash funding by government and pressure
on sales income caused by competition.
Probably the fundamental issue here is the
need for further and more focussed and coordinated investment
in the digital content and infrastructure of this country in order
to provide better access to the UK's national published archive
of scientific (and indeed all types of) publication. MLA is currently
working with The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), the
British Library, The National Archives, the National Health Service
and other major institutions to improve user access to diverse
digital resources in what is being termed "a common information
environment". This work is based on a system already used
by the JISC and known as the JISC Information Environment. It
is essential that any new thinking about access to scientific
publications in electronic form "joins up" with this
work on this bigger picture of access to electronic material.
6. UNIVERSAL
ACCESS
As we pointed out in 3 above, part of the WILIP
vision is that any library, whatever its type, should be a "gateway"
to information held in any other library—or, indeed, any
archive, museum or other repository of knowledge. Although it
is undoubtedly true that the primary audiences for scientific
publications are in higher education, research institutions and
organisations in the health sector, we in MLA are concerned that
access to this material is available to the informal student—the
"lifelong learner"—who may well not be affiliated
to any such institution and whose main gateway to the world of
scientific research is via the public library. We would urge that
this aspect of the problem is not ignored.
MLA is investigating the framework that might
be appropriate to facilitate licensing agreements for all public
libraries in England, but in terms of access to scientific publications
for public library users the real issue is that of their access
to the collections of HE and other libraries. MLA is currently
implementing a three-year Action Plan which will help public libraries
achieve the vision set out for them in the report "Framework
for the Future", produced in February 2003 by the Department
for Culture, Media and Sport. An important strand of the Action
Plan is about improving access to learning opportunities and,
specifically, improving access to the collections of HE and other
libraries. The WILIP report indicated that, although shared access
schemes between HE libraries have burgeoned in recent years, university
research libraries are cautious about allowing physical access
to their collections by users from other types of library because
of space and other resource problems. They see virtual access
as the potential way forward, but here again we come up against
the fact that licensing issues present considerable barriers.
Current experience with UK Computing Plus, a
pilot scheme to allow students from one institution to use e-resources,
either from their home institution while physically based at another,
or from the host institution's own electronic portfolio, has revealed
how complex it is, for legal and licensing reasons, to allow outsiders
to use an institution's private computer network. Everything depends,
when paying for software and e-resources, on the network being
`secure', that is to say, impervious to use by outsiders. This
represents a major barrier to the use of a higher education library
by users of any kind who are not members of the institution in
question. This barrier may need to be explained to users, and
to some extent politicians and planners, who have an expectation
that if something is available electronically it is the same as
its being on the web and freely available to anyone.
7. FUTURE ACTION
The WILIP consultation resulted in over 200
recommended actions for what was at that time MLA and is now Resource
and we have been discussing their possible implementation with
relevant partner such as the BL and CILIP. Some of them are straightforward
and practical and are being implemented where appropriate—in
fact, some of the recommendations made by consultees had already
been actioned by Resource or other bodies at the time of the consultation.
Other recommended actions require more information, more negotiation,
more strategic thinking before action is possible. Many of the
200 recommended actions which fall into this latter category relate
to matters relevant to this Enquiry eg one respondent said it
was Resource that should "facilitate joint approaches involving
universities, university libraries and publishers on better ways
of paying for research"—hardly a minor task!
The next stage of WILIP is called "Routes
to Knowledge". It will begin in April 2004 and will tackle
the actions requiring these further insights. It will have two
main thrusts. One will be about capacity-building across the whole
library world to improve access and the second will be about advocacy
on behalf of the library world and, in particular, about lobbying
the government to invest more in digital content and infrastructure
in general and in libraries in particular—a theme that has
arisen a number of times in this response.
We look forward to learning more about this
Enquiry and its findings so that they can feed into the work that
will be undertaken under the banner of Routes to Knowledge—and,
indeed, conversely, so that they might benefit from it. Other
initiatives eg work on the establishment of the Research Libraries
Network (RLN) will also be crucial.
8. CONCLUSION
Access to information for all is key to MLA's
purpose and so we are pleased to provide these comments.
February 2004
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