This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education
(
http://chronicle.com) was forwarded to you from: peters_at_earlham.edu
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The following message was enclosed:
FOS subscribers:
I'll offer a few thoughts on Ewing's argument in the next
issue of FOSN.
If you have thoughts, I hope you'll post them to the forum.
--Peter
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From the issue dated October 12, 2001
No Free Lunches: We Should Resist the Push to Rush Research
Online
By JOHN H. EWING
In a commentary earlier this year in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, Richard J. Roberts, who shared
the 1993 Nobel Prize in medicine, called on journals in the
life sciences to post their contents online at no charge after
a suitable delay -- one month, or perhaps six months, after
publication. Specifically, he urged them to deposit the
articles they publish in PubMed Central, an online service run
by the National Institutes of Health. Parallel to PubMed
Central, online services exist in other scientific
disciplines, including physics, mathematics, and computer
science, and scholars in those fields have made similar
suggestions.
In his commentary, Roberts, a member of the PubMed Central
Advisory Board, asked why any journal would not do something
so obviously good for science. In most areas of science,
journals are far more important than books; they serve as the
primary way to communicate research that is rapidly advancing.
While Roberts gently encouraged large commercial publishers to
join the effort, he condemned scientific societies that have
been "seduced by the cash that their journals produce" and
urged them "to take a hard look at their priorities and ask
whether they support science or Mammon." He ended with a plea
to "young scientists to think hard and carefully about this
issue."
I am from a scientific society, and I have thought hard and
carefully about the future of scholarly publishing. I worry
that Roberts and the many others who issue similar calls have
not -- or at least, that they have not thought about all
aspects of publishing. They equate with avarice a publisher's
desire to have its journals make a small profit, to ensure
that the journals are self-sustaining. They are contemptuous
of publishers who fear losing revenue by making their
journals' contents free soon after publication. And they
generally scoff at the experience of publishers who have
produced journals for many years, instead urging reliance on
projects that have operated online for only a few years -- or
months.
Experienced publishers understand two important truths:
Scholarly communication costs money, and both technology and
finances will determine its future. Roberts seems to believe
that understanding the finances of publication is unimportant.
It's not.
Thus, while I admire Roberts's goal of free access to
scientific literature, I worry that his clarion call to
journals may ultimately lead to exactly the opposite effect.
How could making articles freely available go wrong? Here is
one possibility.
In rough terms, three groups are involved in disseminating the
results of scientific research today. First are the large
commercial publishers, which increasingly are consolidated
into a small number of giants, each controlling vast numbers
of journals delivered online and in print. Next are the many
independent publishers -- including scientific societies and
universities -- that produce journals, often only one or two.
Finally, there are the proponents of free access who run
variousprojects around the world, like PubMed Central, to
provide access to the literature -- either new or recently
published papers -- without subscription fees of any kind.
Notice that I do not say the free-access advocates want to
provide access at no charge. Most of them recognize that
putting literature online requires money,but they believe that
financial support should come from someone other than
subscribers -- the government, a university, volunteers, etc.
They propose their new model as an alternative to journals,
often citing high subscription prices as the reason for their
views. Some openly advocate the demise of journals; others
believe in coexistence (at least for a time) but want to
compete nonetheless.
What is likely to happen over time if free-access projects
expand? Some subscribers will stop paying -- if not
now,eventually.
Here are the business realities of scholarly publishing. Many
independent publishers operate on a shoestring. They pride
themselves on their low prices and often make little or no
money. When subscriptions suddenly drop, they have no reserves
and few options. The commercial publishers, by contrast, have
deep pockets. They charge high prices, which give them more
than large profits -- the prices also give them large
reserves. That means that they have the ability to weather
sudden losses in subscriptions. If we have free access for a
period of time, those realities mean that the number of
independent publishers would decline, and thus commercial
publishers -- facing less competition -- would grow stronger.
With fewer independents, only two main players would be left
to compete -- the commercial publishers and the free-access
projects. Which would survive? I don't know; there is simply
not enough information to make a prediction. But I do know
that the free-access projects are not based on any sound
business model. Government funds? Surely we cannot rely on the
whims of changing government priorities to support long-term
scholarly publishing. (People in the life sciences have been
lulled into a false sense of security in recent years by
increasing largess; they should take a look at government
funds over many decades.) Universities? Scientific societies?
Individuals? Perhaps. But any business that has only expenses
and no visible revenue is not one that many people would
invest in for long.
Surprisingly, people forget that one competes on quality as
well as price, and that is perhaps the crucial point in
predicting the outcome. Today, most free-access models offer
little more than document delivery -- that is, a convenient
way to deliver something equivalent to a printed copy of the
paper to the reader. The free-access systems have few frills
-- no external links to references, limited searching
capabilities, few sophisticated navigational tools. Frills are
expensive, especially with large volumes of material.
Those frills, however, are precisely what the commercial
publishers emphasize. They add links and the capability of
navigating and searching through large collections of
material; they promise to add even more frills in the future.
And the commercial publishers have the deep pockets to pay for
the enhancements, justifying their prices by those same
frills.
Do people care about frills? Not much, not yet. But users are
complacent about external links to references because so
little of the literature is online at present. It's hard to be
enthusiastic about a web of material that consists of only a
few strands. In a few years, most of the recent literature
will be available online, and external links will become not
only useful but essential. And those navigational tools,
sophisticated searches, and useful enhancements will become
normal expectations rather than cute surprises. The past 20
years of computer innovation make it plain that users will
expect more and more from online literature.
Commercial publishers have the resources to compete as we move
to the next generation of scholarly communication. What about
the free-access projects? No one knows. They may have the
right idea for moving into the future, and they may find a way
to sustain themselves and to compete as well. But they may
serve only to clear the way for a few monopolistic commercial
publishers to gain control over most of the scientific
literature.
Those are not predictions; they are observations about
possible outcomes. They are meant to show that the certitude
expressed by Roberts is unwarranted, and that his condemnation
of scientific societies that do not endorse his free-access
project is unfounded. He believes that those organizations are
not serving the interests of their members. But that is
exactly what they are doing -- serving the interests of
members, both present and future.
In many cases, those same scientificsocieties have developed
online delivery tools, wrestled with archiving, learned how to
prepare for future format changes, and experimented with new
business models that provide sustained financial support. In
short, the societies have accumulated experience, which makes
them cautious: They understand the fragility of scholarly
publishing.
Should we, therefore, support only the status quo? Surely not.
But our actions need to be guided by three principles: to
promote pluralism, avoid dogmatism, and cultivate discourse.
Many good new ideas exist for expanding scholarly
communication, but prematurely tossing away the good old ideas
is foolhardy. We need to encourage experimentation and protect
journals at the same time. No one knows the future, and those
most certain about their predictions often have the least
experience -- at least with large-scale publication.
The real world is far more complicated than any dogmatic call
to action. As scientists, we surely must realize that the best
way to understand a complex problem is to examine it from many
perspectives. Some people bring fresh ideas to the discussion,
while others bring experience; we need to listen to them all.
Calling people names and questioning their motives are not
good ways to listen.
Two thousand years ago, Augustus offered some good advice:
Festina lente (make haste slowly). No one doubts that in the
coming years, technology will change the basic mechanisms by
which we communicate as scholars. We ought to heed Augustus's
advice as we revise those mechanisms.
John H. Ewing is the executive director of the American
Mathematical Society. The society publishes nine journals, all
of which are online.
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Received on Mon Oct 08 2001 - 21:23:54 BST