APPENDIX 38
Memorandum from, the American Association
of Law Libraries, the American Library Association, the Association
of Academic Health Sciences Libraries, the Association of College
& Research Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries,
the Medical Library Association, Public Knowledge and SPARC
1. This memorandum presents the views of
several leading US organisations concerned with the wide, affordable,
and effective dissemination of scientific research results.
2. We commend the Committee's decision to
examine issues related to scientific journal pricing and availability,
which have an important bearing on the conduct of research and
realisation of its benefits. Although our organisations are not
located in the United Kingdom, we offer our views because the
scientific publishing process and journals markets are highly
internationalinvolving authors, subscribers, readers, and
research funding from many nations. Moreover, there are strong
similarities between the market dysfunctions observed in North
America and Europe, and there is substantial cooperation among
stakeholders on both sides of the Atlantic in seeking solutions.
The views expressed herein are closely aligned with those of SPARC
Europe (www.sparceurope.org), a coalition of European libraries
based at Oxford University in the UK, which advocates changes
in the scholarly publishing market to better serve the international
research community.
3. Our organisations are deeply concerned
that the high and fast-rising cost to libraries of journal subscriptions
are a significant threat to scientific communication. Price increasesfar
outpacing the growth of library budgetshave resulted in
libraries no longer being able to afford access to the broad range
of scientific publications needed by researchers. As access to
journals declines, productivity declinesefforts may be
duplicated, unproductive lines of research may continue, and innovation
is slowed. Furthermore, the health of the public is not well served
when access to information about medical research is hindered.
4. Rising journal prices have forced libraries
in North America to postpone the purchase of new journal titles,
to cancel subscriptions altogether, and to reduce the purchase
of books. While research library materials budgets grew almost
150% between 1986 and 2000, subscription prices rose 226%. During
the same period, the US Consumer Price Index rose just 57%. As
a result of the dramatic increase in journal prices, the typical
research library was forced to cut the number of journals to which
they subscribed by 7% and to cut book purchases by 17%.[134]
Libraries in the UK and around the world have experienced similar
pressures. Since libraries worldwide are the primary customers
for journals and thus bear the major overall economic burden of
supporting the cost of publication, the mounting financial pressure
on library subscriptions suggests that the traditional economics
of scientific communication are no longer supportable.
5. We are also concerned that scientific
communication has insufficiently benefited from the opportunities
that now exist for global sharing of knowledge. Although the potential
of the Internet to reduce costs and expand dissemination was widely
anticipated, experience demonstrates that vested publishing interestsimmune
from normal market forces because of their control of "must
have" contenthave blocked the realisation of these
potential benefits. Indeed, journal licensing practices of the
largest publishers, characterised by the bundling of online access
to many or all of a publisher's journals, have contributed to
rising costs for libraries and have inhibited libraries' ability
to manage their budgets and serve user needs. The severity of
the problem can be seen in the recent actions of such major American
universities as Cornell, Harvard, and Duke, which have chosen
to cancel electronic access to the bundled journal package from
the industry giant, Elsevier Science. [135]
According to the library consortium through which Duke University
subscribed,
Elsevier has insisted that each library commit
to a policy of zero cancellations over the life of the license.
This would not only lock the consortium into an inflexible collection
policy, but would inordinately privilege the journals of a single
publisher. In order to maintain Elsevier subscriptions, journals
from other publishers and in other disciplines would have to be
cancelled. The result would be a growing imbalance in library
collections. We are additionally concerned about the detrimental
effect such a commitment would have on the scholarly associations
and society publishers whose journals would become especially
vulnerable to cancellation. [136]
6. In addition to the harm caused to scientific
societies and other small and medium-sized enterprises, recent
mergers among commercial journal publishers have led to increased
concentration of market power in the journal publishing industry.
While mergers in competitive markets where there are substantial
efficiencies result in reduced prices, this is generally not the
case in the scientific journals markets. Here such mergers have
resulted in higher prices[137],
deterioration of customer service, and reduced attention to editorial
quality. [138]
7. After years of active engagement in market-based
experiments aimed at introducing competitive forces to achieve
expanded dissemination of research (including improved document
delivery models, cooperative collection development, site and
consortial licensing of electronic information, and development
of competitive alternatives to high-priced journals), our organisations
have concluded that the traditional subscription-based model for
supporting publication costs no longer maximizes access to research
material or realisation of its economic and social benefits. As
expressed in a recent letter to faculty from University of California
administrators, "The economics of scholarly journal publishing
are incontrovertibly unsustainable." [139]
8. Given these facts, we believe that open-access
research dissemination is a highly promising means of addressing
the fundamental needs of science in a digital age. It is our view
that the dual strategies of open-access publishing and deposit
of research in open-access digital archives offer complementary
means to address the economic dysfunctions in the journals market
and to capture the societal benefits of scientific advances. These
strategies are articulated by the "Budapest Open Access Initiative"
(www.soros.org/openaccess/) and reinforced by the "Bethesda
Statement on Open Access Publishing" (www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethesda.htm)
and the "Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in
the Sciences and Humanities" (www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html).
Open access is being implemented today by hundreds of open access
journals (see Directory of Open Access Journals at www.doaj.org)
and scores of open digital archives (see opcit.eprints.org/explorearchives.shtml).
9. Taking these various problems and opportunities
into account, there are several actions we recommend to the Science
and Technology Committee:
9.1 Current ambiguity surrounding the issue
of who will pay for the cost of publication makes the move to
open access a higher risk than is necessary for journal publishers.
Resolution of this issue may be a precondition of a broader move
to open access and the realisation of its benefits. While many
US granting agencies allow their funds to be used for publication
charges, we have urged that they go a step further by setting
aside funds exclusively for open-access publication[140],
following the example of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
[141]
We encourage the Science and Technology Committee to recommend
that UK grant-making bodies recognise research dissemination as
an integral part of the research process by earmarking a portion
of their grant funds to be used for open-access publication. The
Wellcome Trust in the UK has already adopted this approach. [142]
9.2 The Committee should recommend to publicly
funded UK grant-making bodies that they require authors to deposit
a copy of their final, peer-reviewed paper in a fully searchable,
freely accessible Internet repository or archive. There are two
key motivations for such a policy. First, it would give taxpayers
full and direct access to the research for which they have paid.
Currently taxpayers or their institutions must pay a second fee
for access. This fee is normally so high that, practically speaking,
the research is inaccessible to the public that funded it. Second,
it increases the return on the government's investment in this
research, since the research becomes more accessible, discoverable,
sharable, and for these reasons, more useful, than toll-access
research. The recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development's (OECD) "Declaration on Access to Research Data
From Public Funding"endorsed by the governments of
the UK, the US, and 32 other nationsexpressed the view
that "open access will maximise the value derived from public
investments in data collection efforts." [143]
This view pertains no less to the synthesis of research results
published in journals than to the supporting data that was the
focus of the OECD communiqué.
9.3 Today it is common practice for publishers
to require that authors transfer copyright in their work to the
publisher as a condition of publication. Typically, such transfer
agreements do not enable authors to deposit their works in open
digital archives, as advocated above, or to use the works in their
teaching or research. Consequently, the Committee should recommend
to UK grant-making bodies that they make it a condition of grant
funding that authors retain copyright in their papers so that
they may be deposited in open archives and otherwise used for
educational purposes.
9.4 We also encourage the Committee to recommend
that a new standard of antitrust review be adopted by UK government
enforcement agencies charged with examining merger transactions
in the journal publishing industry. A UK Office of Fair Trading
investigation in 2002 concluded that "there is evidence to
suggest that the market for STM (scientific, technical, and medical)
journals may not be working well," but declined to recommend
any market intervention at that time because "it remains
to be seen whether market forces, perhaps enhanced by the use
of new technology, will remedy the problems that may exist."
[144]
Because circumstances have further deteriorated since 2002higher
prices, further concentration in the industry, and additional
evidence of library market failurewe believe it is time
to re-open the review, using a standard of evaluation that takes
fuller account of the decision-making process used by libraries
to make purchase selections. [145]
Only then will these mergers be subjected to the degree of scrutiny
they deserve and adequate access to government-funded research
be preserved.
WHO WE
ARE
American Association of Law Libraries
www.aallnet.org
American Library Association
www.ala.org
Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries
www.aahsl.org
Association of College & Research Libraries
www.ala.org/acrl
Association of Research Libraries
www.arl.org
Medical Library Association
www.mlanet.org
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources
Coalition)
www.arl.org/sparc
Public Knowledge
www.publicknowledge.org
February 2004
134 ARL Statistics 1999-2000, Washington, DC: Association
of Research Libraries, p 9, 14, Graph 2 & 4. Back
135
Goldsmith, C. "Reed Elsevier Feels Resistance to Web Pricing,"
Wall Street Journal, 19 January 2004, p B1. Back
136
Lange, P, Oblinger, J, and Sheldon, R. Memorandum: "Changes
in Elsevier Science Access," Triangle Research Libraries
Network, 14 January 2004, p 2. http://www.trln.org/elsevier%20memo.pdf.
Back
137
Susman, T, et al. Publisher Mergers: A Consumer-Based
Approach to Antitrust Analysis, Washington, DC: Information
Access Alliance, June 2003, http://www.informationaccess.org/.
Back
138
Munroe, M. E-mail to LibLicense-L mailing list, June 3, 2003,
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0306/msg00008.html.
Back
139
Office of Systemwide Planning for Libraries and Scholarly Communication,
"UC Libraries' Negotiations With Elsevier", 22 December
2003, Berkeley, Calif: University of California Libraries, http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/elsevier-update.html.
Back
140
Johnson, R. Letter to Elias Zerhouni, 6 January 2004, http://www.arl.org/sparc/resources/OpenAccess-Zerhouni.pdf.
Back
141
BioMed Central. "Howard Hughes Medical Institute will cover
article charges", Open Access Now, 6 October 2003, http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/news/?issue=6. Back
142
Scientific publishing: A position statement by the Wellcome
Trust in support of open access publishing. Back
143
Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy. "Science,
Technology and Innovation for the 21st Century", Paris:
OECD, Final Communique, Annex 1, http://www.oecd.org/document/15/0,2340,en_2649_34487_25998799_1_1_1_1,00.html
Back
144
Office of Fair Trading. The market for scientific, technical
and medical journals, London, 9 September 2002, p 1. http://www.oft.gov.uk/News/Press+releases/2002/PN+55-02+Can+the+scientific+journals+market+work+better.htm Back
145
Such a standard is discussed in Publisher Mergers: A Consumer-Based
Approach to Antitrust Analysis, note 4. Back
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