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Nature Debate on Open Scientific Journals
Declan Butler writes "I thought I'd let you know that the journal Nature is currently running an online special on the debate over access to the electronic scientific literature. It will be updated with two to three new articles each week, and will run until around mid-May. 'The Internet is profoundly changing how scientists work and publish. New business models are being tested by publishers, including open access, in which the author pays and content is free to the user. This ongoing web focus will explore current trends and future possibilities.' Best, Declan Butler, European correspondent, Nature"
Anyone can go to any public university library and make copies of articles from journals. Articles which the scientist has paid a good amount to get published in terms of research not to mention paying the journal to publish it (even if a journal accepts your article, you still have to pay the costs of the layout, figures, reprints, etc.) I worked in life sciences research at the University of Washington for 10 years and I have seen this personally.
As a person who works at a research instutite with publicications in JFM, AMS, Nature, etc... And one of the best COMPLETE JFM collections (Journal of Fluid Mechanics) in the country, this is a big deal.
It goes down to the "communication" pillar of the Scientific Method.
Take our 400+ publications, for example. The're searchable online, but are in a database. Which means they don't show up on google.
Most of them are old, but in this field (fluid mechanics) a "recent" article may be in the mid 80's. I worked on one this morning which has sources from 1911 fluid mechanics work. Most of the cutting edge stuff just happened back in the mid 80's, and now, a few other groups are starting up again with this area.
Now, unless you either:
1. have an ip address at a school with a subscription
2. have a subsctiption yourself
3. have a catalouge, or a print out of all the journals AND have lots of time...
You will have a hard time getting at the bulk of the information availble in these types of fields. Take Chemical Engineering for example. Other than major applications and some computer simulations, little has changes since like the 70's. This means that you have to go to old print journals to get comparitively cutting edge stuff in some cases.
This article is right up there with making the descision of "profit or communication, or both."
By the way, we'll have all out publications indices up where google will be able to find them soon. And we have a policy for passing out reprints upon request, if we can.
-=fshalor
In the standard scientific/mathematical/biomedical publishing deal, for the more high-impact journals (that is, those whose articles are most frequently cited), the authors do pay--to cover, they say, typesetting, images, etc.
The universities have usually paid three times for an article in a journal to which they subscribe, with salary, grants, and subscriptions.
Are you sure you want ads subsidising the publication of scientific research, especially in medicine?
This paper entitled, "Viagra causes withered genitals," is brought to you by the makers of Cialis.
Better yet, there were two separate instances at the University of Toronto where two separate researchers were pressured into suppressing their research when it was unfavorable to one of the university's sponsors. The investigator in one case was Dr. Nancy Olivieri, who faced a possible lawsuit and discipline when she spoke out against Apotex; the other one involved Dr. David Healey, who had a job offer rescinded when he spoke against Prozac.
So what's left? Author-pay, government-pay and donation-based systems all have disadvantages.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
I am research scientist who has worked in big Pharma (Pfizer, Pharmacia & Upjohn) and I am currently working in a small startup biotech company. While working in big pharma we constantly had problems with our service that made all the journals available online (intranet). It was always a pain in the ass to hunt down that 'last paper' but we "People" who could take care of it for us. This is, by the way, how big Pharma handles most problems; throw ridiculous amounts of money at the problem unti it goes away. At the time I rather enjoyed that power - but I always felt a bit uneasy about it.
Now that I'm in a small Biotech the issues are very apparent. Many scientific journals, that we absolutely need, cost more then $1000 each for a years subscription. If you only new how many different journals we need. With start up monies of less then $500k and insane prices on lab equipment and supplies we need every break we can get. If we didn't already have an "alternate"(in other words shady) method of literature acquisition we would be screwed.
While it is true you can find just about any journal in some library - good f-ing luck finding one with everything you need. I hope that a solution can be worked out. Many researchers could benefit from an environment were the data/methods/protocols they need are just a few clicks away - instead of a 4 hour drive or expensive contract away.
"Capital punishment makes the state into a murderer. Imprisonment makes the state into a gay dungeon-master"
I don't know what field you're in, but in my area of research, almost all journals have significant page charges.
Example:
Electronic manuscripts: $120.00 per page
Paper manuscripts: $150 per page
Color figures: $600.00 for first figure, $150.00 for each additional color figure
You're looking at ~$1000 minimum for a typical paper.
Scientific publishing is a standout example of how skewed the incentives can be in copyright law. Typically, the scientist(s) publishing a paper signs over the copyright to a journal (which may be for- or non-profit), which often charges a fee to the author for the priviledge (and especially for extras like color figures). Thereafter, the interests of the author to have the paper as widely distributed as possible is in direct conflict with the journal's interests in earning fees for access to the content. Regardless of how many people read the paper, the author receives no royalties on it. Many journals now give the author permission to redistribute electronic & paper copies of the article (gee, thanks!), but since these are not linkable by standard databases or the journal's own web page, they have limited value. You can search for them on Google, maybe you'll get lucky. Scientists sign over their rights (and often pay a fee) to have paper published under a prestiguous journal name, and to have the paper peer reviewed (NB: the peer reviewers are not paid either).
It is so obviously in the interests of scientists to have truly open journal access, it is amazing it is taking so long. Especially since many of the top journal publishers are professional scientific societies, ostensibly representing the interests of the scientists.
"I believe that the cult of the particular brings only death - for it bases order on likeness." St.-Exupery
I work for the Public Library of Science, an organization dedicated to Open Access publishing, and just wanted to clarify a few issues.
I've only briefly scanned the posts, but wanted to clear up a few things, at least about how we go about open access publishing:
1) ALL of our papers are peer-reviewed to very stringent standards. In fact, many of our editorial board members have worked with high profile for-profit journals (Nature, Science, Cell, etc.). This is not simply a 'pay to publish' system.
2) Our publication costs are not necessarily prohibitive. We grant waivers to those unable to afford these costs. Incidentally, our publication charge does not currently cover even our own costs.
Currently, for-profit journals are taking advantage of a free labor pool (scientists who donate their time to perform peer review), and turning around and profiting from it. As several readers have mentioned, much of the research published in these journals is funded by taxpayers; the fact that these taxpayers, and even the scientists themselves, have to pay for access to this research is something which needs to be remedied.
Please refer to our website for more information.