APPENDIX 17
Memorandum from Professor Robert W Cahn
I am a semi-retired academic, aged 79, and have
been steadily engaged in scientific editing for 45 years (aside
from the normal teaching, research and writing), and still today
edit a series of scientific books and a technical encyclopaedia.
I have played a major part in launching and maintaining four scientific
periodicals, as well as many books and three encyclopaedias, and
have also been involved as an adviser for numerous other periodicals
. . . all this for six different publishers (in the UK, USA, Holland
and Germany). I can therefore claim a measure of expertise in
STM publishing.
I have been informed about five specific points
that interest the Committee, and I divide my comments accordingly,
within the limits of my expertise. My main remarks refer to the
first two items:
1. PUBLISHERS'
CURRENT POLICIES
ON PRICING
AND PROVISION
OF SCIENTIFIC
JOURNALS. ("SCIENTIFIC"
IS TAKEN
TO EMBRACE
"TECHNOLOGICAL").
1.1 This is an area that now intensely worries
many scientists and librarians; in my view, it is the most important
of the areas the Select Committee is proposing to investigate.
Most scientific publishers, including the big ones among them,
have high standards of typesetting, proof-correcting, printing
and binding of journals. The problems do not lie in these technical
areas.
1.2 It is well established, and uncontested,
that the subscription prices for scientific periodicals, both
in print and online, have been increasing for over a decade at
a much faster rate than general inflation (as measured for US
and UK currencies). I don't think it is necessary to labour the
evidence for this assertion. So far as my limited personal experience
goes, this price explosion is considerably greater for journals
published by the big international commercial publishers than
it is for journals published by professional societies.
1.3 What is contested is the justifiability
of this price explosion. Publishers sometimes underline the costs
of setting up elaborate internet procedures, including the creation
and archiving of papers, as a reason for this price explosion.
In my view, this argument might carry conviction for a few years'
worth of price explosion, but not many years!
1.4 The central problem arises from the
preference of many researchers (especially younger people) for
online reading and even browsing of journals. This puts great
pressure on libraries, which have to subscribe to online journals.
Here we come to the most serious problem of all . . . the "big
deal schemes": almost all libraries are being forced (the
word is not too strong) to subscribe for a huge basket of many
hundreds of journals published by one and the same publisher;
they cannot pick and choose. Ultimate users then exert heavy pressure
for their preferred journals (a minute subset of the basket) to
be available online. Librarians who have challenged this requirement
are faced by a pitiless insistence on the part of the big publishers.
(In the USA recently, a big federal university has succeeded,
after months of confrontation, in subduing the will of one major
publisher and has been able to pick and choose to some measure,
at a reduced price—a price which however they are not allowed
to make public!).
2. WHAT ACTION
SHOULD GOVERNMENT,
ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS
AND PUBLISHERS
BE TAKING
TO PROMOTE
A COMPETITIVE
MARKET IN
SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS?
2.1 The big publishers are prepared to negotiate
with the general run of librarians on everything EXCEPT the large
profit margins on journal publishing, and big-deal schemes are
getting to be the norm. The pricing of journals is clearly determined
at the very top of a publisher's organisation; as an editor, I
have never had the slightest influence on pricing of the journals
for which I laboured, though I have tried. In my view, the only
way of breaking this particular form of charging is for individual
parliaments to legislate against it. This could in principle be
done in various ways . . . either directly, by insisting legally
that consumers must be allowed to pick and choose what they will
buy, as in most other commercial transactions (without a disproportionate
increase in unit prices for that privilege), or indirectly. One
indirect approach is being considered by the US Congress: the
suggestion there is that a paper based on research financed by
a country's public funds cannot, in that country, be copyrighted
by publishers. If such legislation, which has of course various
pros and cons, should be passed, such papers can then be freely
downloaded or copied without restriction by or for readers, from
whatever site can be found. That, in turn, would weaken the legal
stranglehold by the publishers.
2.2 It is to be noted that a large publisher
of scientific journals, especially when he has grown by takeovers
of smaller publishers, is effectively exercising a monopoly. Journals
are not mutually substitutable, at least in the short run: an
active researcher feels he HAS to have access to certain journals
which now receive a fair number of the best articles in a particular
field. Other journals are no substitute.
2.3 One dire consequence of the journal
price explosion is that books (as distinct from periodicals) are
being elbowed out of the library market. Many—probably most—academic
libraries (other than the few legal deposit libraries) simply
cannot afford to buy more than a very few (or, indeed, any) technical
books, because all of their library grants have to be focused
on journals. Clearly from what I have read, the publishers optimistically
reckon that universities should be coerced into sharply increasing
libraries' budgets (some claim that library budgets have gone
up more slowly than total research expenditure, and that this
is wrong), but—in the UK at least—anyone who has been
following the parliamentary news is aware that universities cannot
possibly increase library budgets. Nevertheless, the contention
by some publishers that library budgets are unreasonably small
deserves expert financial examination.) Technical books, of which
I have very extensive experience, never have sold in large numbers
(a title which sells 1,000 copies is reckoned to be doing pretty
well). The big publishers do a good job of editing, producing
and selling such books, and the relatively high prices here have
always been recognised as inevitable. If books are finally edged
out of the market, the consequence for scholarship (and also for
research) will be very grave: one of the key functions of scientific
books is to act as critical filters for a huge mass of information
published in journals—in effect, as a supplementary refereeing
process—and without such books, scientific indigestion must
result. Incidentally, the pressure to put entire books on the
internet is not strong, and in my experience, where it has been
tried it is not very successful, at least not yet.
2.4 A further concern arising from the widespread
users' preference for online access to journals is that the archival
aspect of the major journals is being compromised. Libraries hold
old runs of journals on their shelves to fulfil that archival
function, but if users cannot be bothered to go to the shelves,
they will depend on online archives. Publishers usually charge
extra for online access to old volumes (except for the last year
or two), even though these have already been paid for once. This
problem can be laid at the door of the consumers more than the
publishers. If printed back volumes of journals become mere shelved
ornaments, we have a very serious library problem indeed. In my
view, libraries should pay nothing extra for online archives beyond
two or three immediately preceding years, and it really is no
grave hardship for researchers to look at old papers taken from
library shelves, or summoned by interlibrary loan.
2.5 Apart from the contentious issue of
possible copyright legislation, there is one other important issue.
numerous American journals (both those published by learned societies
and those published commercially) levy page charges. Typically,
the lead author of a paper (or his financial sponsor) is required
to pay a charge of, typically, several hundred dollars (the total
is often calculated on the basis of the number of printed pages)
as a condition of publication; quite often, there is provision
for forgiving this charge for impecunious, especially third-world
authors . . . a form of means test. This arrangement permits the
subscription price to be held within reasonable bounds, at least
for journals published by learned societies. All this happens
in America, but not in Europe. Perhaps European journals should
now be encouraged, or conceivably even obliged, to reduce subscription
charges (and their inflation) sharply in exchange for a reasonable
pattern of page charges. This would be a counsel of despair (scientists
like myself have long rejoiced in the absence of page charges
in Europe) but perhaps there is no alternative. However, it is
not immediately clear how publishers can be legally obliged to
reduce subscription rates for journals as a quid-pro-quo for such
a new form of income, and that would be crucial.
2.6 A possible consequence of introducing
page charges more widely might be a reduction in the number of
scientific papers submitted for publication. This could be a considerable
benefit to the world of scientific research: the large numbers
of minor papers which are never cited and disappear into a black
hole of forgetfulness would be discouraged. These appear mainly
because of the academic "publish or perish" syndrome;
the impact a particular paper makes on its community is often
ignored by the people whose responsibility it is to promote or
appoint academics. (When I contemplate my own list of over 200
publications, I would say by hindsight that many of them could
very well be spared!). In my field, in Britain, I know of a few
very eminent recent practitioners who published few papers, but
every one a classic; such heroes of the profession do not overload
the journal literature. A reduction in the number of papers submitted
would also have a highly beneficial effect on the crisis in finding
competent referees for the burgeoning literature. One extreme
course of action might be to legally oblige journals which benefit
from page-charges to pay a realistic fee for the services of referees;
at present, referees perform their task in most cases without
pay, out of public spirit. Their conscientious work enhances the
reputation of the journals which they serve, and thus enables
the publisher to raise the subscription price!
[3, 4. CONSEQUENCES
OF OPEN-ACCESS
JOURNALS—EFFICACY
OF LEGAL
DEPOSIT LIBRARIES—I
DO NOT
HAVE THE
REQUISITE EXPERIENCE
TO COMMENT
ON THESE
ISSUES.]
5. WHAT IMPACT
WILL TRENDS
IN ACADEMIC
JOURNAL PUBLISHING
HAVE ON
THE RISKS
OF SCIENTIFIC
FRAUD AND
MALPRACTICE?
5.1 The trend to open-access—if it
is not accompanied by a contraction of commercial journals—may
well reduce the standard of refereeing, and some journals may
feel obliged to dispense with referees altogether. (There is one
notorious editor in America who selects papers purely on the basis
of his authors' established reputation). If so, in consequence
there may come to be rather more cases of intellectual theft and
fraud. Even then, the incidence of such problems in the scientific
profession as a whole is tiny: though the press loves this kind
of story and splashes it across the front page, serious cases
are few and far between. There are no cabals of fraudsters actively
supporting each other, and it is a long time since Lysenko in
Russia was encouraged by his government in his life of scientific
tyranny. Compared, say, to cases one reads about very major fraud
in business, this is virtually a non-issue, particularly because
the very nature of scientific research leads investigators, sooner
rather than later, to try to confirm claims by doing new experiments,
and then fraud must come out.
A correspondent in the journal Nature,
a few days ago, quotes a colleague on why people commit scientific
fraud at all. "He drolly observed that the real question
is not why scientists commit fraud, but why more don't do it.
He went on to say that since the maximum penalty for getting caught
(dismissal) was no worse than the routine penalty for not producing
enough high-profile papers (no job), most junior scientists, at
least, have nothing to lose by committing fraud."
On the whole, we are a remarkably honest group
of people.
January 2004
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