[GUFSC] [Sbc-l] Matéria sobre Editoras vs. acesso livre a resultados científicos (fwd)

Quarta Agosto 25 14:24:12 BRT 2004

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 10:17:40 -0300 (EST)
From: Markus Endler
Subject: [Sbc-l] Matéria sobre Editoras vs. acesso livre a resultados
    científicos

Vejam a matéria abaixo, que apareceu na The Economist, sobre o tema:
Editoras vs. acesso livre a resultados científicos.  

Boa leitura,
Markus Endler - DI/PUC-Rio
-----------------------------

Scientific publishing is having to change rapidly to respond to growing
pressure for free access to published research

IN A letter penned in 1676, Isaac Newton famously wrote, "If I have
seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." Although it
is debatable whether Newton was being modest or making a barbed comment
towards his correspondent (a competitor of short stature) the phrase
epitomises views of how science progresses--with the speedy and open
publishing of discoveries so that others may make use of them to push
back the frontiers of human understanding.

For centuries, printed journals destined for university libraries have
been the focus of this publishing activity. The winds of change,
though, are sweeping through these quiet and dusty corridors. Because
of the internet, cost and distance are no longer barriers to providing
the results of research to more than just a restricted and privileged
few. This is leading people to ask why those results are not, in fact,
freely available to all. 

An impressive industry has built itself around the dissemination of
academic research--particularly scientific work. There are over 2,000
publishers in what is called STM (scientific, technological and
medical) publishing alone. Together, they publish 1.2m articles a year
in about 16,000 periodical journals. It is a huge success. Not
everyone, though, is entirely satisfied. Academics, universities and
governments are worried that publishers have grown a little too fat and
happy. 

SERIAL KILLERS
The problem is one of monopoly. Of course, publishing itself is an
industry with few barriers to entry. That is not the issue. But certain
journals are able to capture a lion's share of the important papers
because researchers want their papers published in the most prestigious
ones. Some titles have acquired exceptional cachet over the years. Such
is their prestige that a researcher can win tenure, promotion or a
research grant on the basis of a single article in the right
publication.

That means the publishers of those journals have the pick of the best
papers, reinforcing their reputations in a positive feedback loop. They
also claim copyright over what they publish, reinforcing their
monopoly. So if you want to read an important paper (or an unimportant
one for that matter) you have no legal choice but to pay the publisher
for it. 

The upshot is that university libraries must purchase the leading
titles, almost whatever their price, and often at the expense of
carrying less-exalted works. Owning a prestigious journal has thus
become a lucrative business, which many people believe is being abused. 

Cornell University, for example, recently reviewed its policies on
journal acquisition. In the course of that review it noted that between
1986 and 2001 the library budget at its main campus in Ithaca, New
York, increased by 149%. The number of periodicals purchased, however,
grew by only 5%. 

Governments, whose funds ultimately pay for a lot of the journals on
the shelves of university libraries, are noticing too. A report
published in July by Britain's House of Commons Science and Technology
Committee found that the average price of an academic journal in
Britain rose by 58% between 1998 and 2003, while the retail price index
rose by 11% in that period, and scientific output rose by 20%. The
report added that profits in the industry were exceptional, singling
out Reed Elsevier, a British publisher whose Dutch subsidiary,
Elsevier, is the market leader in STM publishing, for having profits
"as much as 34% at the operating level".

Indeed, Elsevier has attracted criticism from a number of quarters.
Cornell's reviewers, for example, observed that in the previous decade
Elsevier's annual price increases on its titles had often been over
10%--and occasionally over 20%. 

Arie Jongejan, CEO of Elsevier's science and technology division,
defends his firm's profits, pointing out that after tax and
depreciation, last year's profit margins were 17%, not as high as some
claim. But that is still a hefty whack. He justifies such margins on
the grounds that the firm's journals are publishing more papers each
year and also because high profitability is necessary in order to
ensure the sustainability of those journals. 

FREE FOR ALL?
But the dominance of Elsevier and its kin is under attack. The House of
Commons Science and Technology Committee did more than just lament the
rising price of journals. It told the British government that the
country's universities should be required to ensure that all their
research papers are available free online, and that government-funded
research grants ought to include free access to the findings a
condition of the awards. The government will respond next month. 

American politicians, too, are getting cross. Earlier this month the
House of Representatives' Committee on Appropriations approved a
provision in a bill that backs open access to material published by the
National Institutes of Health (NIH). The committee expressed concern at
the lack of public access to research findings, and at the rising price
of journals. These, it commented, were "contrary to the best interests
of the US taxpayers who paid for this research". 

If the Senate approves the recommendation, it will become law and the
NIH will be required to deposit research funded by the agency into an
online government archive called PubMed Central within six months of
publication in any journal. If this happens, it will be significant,
since NIH-funded work amounts to 50,000 papers a year. 

Even mainland Europe is getting in on the act. In October 2003, the
leading research associations of Germany, France and Switzerland signed
what has become known as the "Berlin Declaration"--another call for
free access to research findings. One of the groups behind the
declaration, Germany's Max Planck Society, is now changing its
employment contracts to require staff to return the copyright of their
work to the society. At the moment it gets assigned to the publishers.
Although the society's researchers will still be able to publish in
journals, their work must eventually be put into an online repository.

In response to the Berlin Declaration, the European Commission has
begun a study of the scientific-publishing market--looking at price,
access to published papers, and copyright. Because 41% of scientific
papers originate in Europe (compared with 31% in America), the results
of this study could have a big effect on the publishing industry.

One way of addressing the concerns of politicians and university
libraries is the promotion of journals in which the author pays to be
published. Many new online journals are attempting to do this, using
electronic publication to cut their costs. The results are then made
available free to readers. 

BioMed Central, based in Britain, is one such publisher. The company,
which was established in 1999, has not yet broken even. But Deborah
Cockerill, the firm's assistant publisher, says it is likely to do so
soon, as it is growing fast. The number of articles it publishes has
doubled every year. In America, a not-for-profit organisation called
the Public Library of Science is employing a similar business model.

Another possibility is to generalise the House of Representatives'
proposal for American medical research and allow the traditional
journals a limited period of monopoly--say six months--after which they
have to make all taxpayer-funded content available free online.

Understandably, the traditional publishers are not too happy about
these ideas, although some of them are moving pre-emptively towards the
free-after-six-months model of the future. Barbara Meredith,
vice-president of professional and scholarly publishing at the
Association of American Publishers, a trade group, has said that a
demand for open access to research findings could undermine the
sustainability of the publishing industry, and has promised to lobby
vigorously against this happening.

 At the moment, the entire open access literature is tiny--less than 1%
of what is published according to the Public Library of Science. But if
governments were to insist that the results of research they fund must
be published in an open-access way, that would change completely. The
days of huge profits would then be numbered. Prestige has its uses--and
the open-access journals will, no doubt, establish a pecking-order
among themselves fairly quickly. But for prestige at any price, time is
probably up. 

See this article with graphics and related items at http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3061258

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