Open Access Publishing: Trend or Transformation ACRL Delaware Valley Chapter Workshop March 24, 2006 Ray English Director of Libraries Oberlin College

Liberating Research: Transforming the System of Scholarly Communication through Open Access and Other Strategies

Scholarly Communication: What’s the Real Issue? Serials crisis? Cost of journals? Industry consolidation? Publisher monopoly power? Monographs crisis? Permissions crisis? Licensing restrictions? Big Deals? Loss of public domain? Legislative threats to fair use? Preservation of electronic information? Published knowledge growing faster than library budgets?

“It’s access stupid” Problems are resulting in loss of access, lack of access barriers to access Access to scholarship by users Access to publishing opportunities Problems are systemic

Serials Crisis Extraordinary price increases Worst is scientific fields Worse for foreign publishers Commercial journals have substantially higher prices and high profit margins Inelastic market Highest priced journals tend to have lesser impact

Costs of Economics Journals Bergstrom data Publisher Type Number of Journals Price / Page Price / Cite Non-Profit91$0.18$0.15 For-Profit206$0.82$2.40

Costs of a Complete Economics Collection Bergstrom data PublisherType Percent of Cost Percent of Cites Non-Profit9%62% For-Profit91%38%

Journal Prices by Discipline Bergstrom data Ecology Economics Atmosph. Sci Mathematics Neuroscience Physics Costper page Cost per page Non-profit Forprofit For-profitNon-profitFor-profit Cost per cite Bergstrom, Costs and Benefits of Library Site Licenses to Academic Journals, PNAS, 2004

Antitrust issues Increasing corporate control of journal publishing Industry consolidation Mergers produce price increases Bundling creates barriers to entry Information Access Alliance

Library responses to serials crisis Request increased budgets Cut subscriptions Reduce monograph purchases Cut subscriptions and reduce monographs License electronic journals Rely on document delivery or ILL

Monographs crisis University presses under pressure Library markets in decline Responses Publish Bullshit Reduce specialized monographs Monograph publishing opportunities in decline

Other issues Permissions crisis Licensing issues National policy issues Preservation of electronic information Growth in number of journals

Scholarship as a public good Substantial portion is funded by taxpayers supported publicly created in non-profit sector Journal literature is freely given away by authors But journal publishing is largely under corporate control A public good in private hands

Need for transformative change Traditional system is unsustainable Scholars don’t have access, or are losing it System of out of the control of researchers and the academy

Who can create (or impede) change? Who holds power in the system? Librarians, library organizations Publishers Higher education administrators Faculty and other researchers As producers of research As editors, editorial board members, peer reviewers As users of research Congress, Federal government

Change strategies Open Access Collective buying Competitive journals Editorial board control Declaring Independence Antitrust actions Campus advocacy National policy advocacy

Open access Most promising strategy to date Free, unrestricted online access to research literature Few restrictions on subsequent use Two forms: Open access journals Author self-archiving - in open archives

Definitions, Proclamations Budapest Open Access Initiative Bethesda, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Meeting Berlin Conference on Open Access to Knowledge in Science and the Humanities

Open access journals Fully peer reviewed Full research content openly available on the web Publication costs covered prior to publication Lower cost structure

Open access -- an access model Business models vary: Author fees, from research grants Subscriptions to non-research content Advertising Institutional memberships Institutional support

Examples Public Library of Science BioMed Central Hindawi Directory of Open Access Journals

Open access journals - issues Funding / business models still evolving Prestige may be lacking for new titles May be less workable in some disciplines Delayed open access may be more feasible in some instances

Author self-archiving Author deposits article in an openly accessible repository Disciplinary repository Institutional repository Pre-print, post-print, final published version

Disciplinary repositories Make intellectual output of a discipline openly accessible Example: arXive - for high energy physics Math, cognitive science, economics, library science, and many other fields

Institutional repositories Capture the intellectual output of an institution Examples: DSpace - at MIT University of California eScholarship Repository Ohio Digital Commons Issues - obtaining content

National and universal repositories French national repository Universal repository For those who do not have access to an institutional or disciplinary repository Internet Archive, Brewster Kahle

Self-archiving Author control of copyright is critical Authors modifies publisher’s copyright agreement SPARC author’s addendum High percentage of publishers allow self-archiving SHERPA ROMEO listing

Value of open access Increased access (instantaneous, worldwide) readership research impact Fosters scientific progress and growth of knowledge

Progress of open access Foundation and funding agency support Welcome Trust mandate National Institutes of Health policy United Kingdom developments Faculty / university actions University of Kansas, Columbia Growth of institutional and disciplinary repositories Growth of open access journals

Impact of open access movement Changed the debate -- focus is now on access Widespread acceptance of self-archiving by publishers Delayed open access -- substantially increased Experimentation with individual article OA Commercial publisher adjustments Blackwell Author’s Choice, Springer Open Choice

Follow open access developments SPARC Open Access Newsletter Peter Suber

Other change strategies

Collective buying Licensing journals collectively through library consortia OhioLINK Increased journal access through statewide licenses Cost controls Not a transformative strategy

Competitive journals Creating journals to compete with specific high-priced commercial titles Example: Organic Letters See other “SPARC Alternatives” listed on SPARC webpage under “Publishing Partners” Issue -- journal proliferation, but not if OA

Editorial board control Editorial boards have power -- if they will exercise it Example: American Journal of Physical Anthropology

Actions for editorial boards Examine business practices of the journal: Look at: Subscription pricing trends, access policies Circulation and renewal history Production process and publisher performance Push for reasonable prices and access policies Push for transition to open access model or delayed access Consider moving the journal

Declaring Independence Move journal to a nonprofit or independent context University press, society publisher, academic context, independent Consider alternative models, particularly open access Examples: Evolutionary Ecology Research Other titles listed as “SPARC Alternatives” and “SPARC Leading Edge” on SPARC webpage

Antitrust actions Information Access Alliance White paper on publisher mergers Challenged Kluwer - Springer merger Working with some state attorneys general and DOJ on anticompetitive practices

Campus advocacy ACRL Scholarly Communications Toolkit holarlycommunicationtoolkit/toolkit.htm Create Change ACRL / ARL Scholarly Communications Institute

National policy advocacy NIH policy follow-up Other scientific agencies Congressional legislation CURES bill Cornyn bill

Signs of hope Many factors are leading toward fundamental change: The Force (technology) is on the side of change New strategies for change (especially open access) are working Librarians are becoming more active on the issues There's increased faculty engagement Scientific publishing is reaching the level of national policy debate It will still be a long struggle

Open Access Trend? Transformation?

What will you do? Sit on the sidelines? Question effectiveness of change strategies? Work for change?

Contact information: Ray English Director of Libraries, Oberlin College

Copyright information Copyright 2006 by Ray English This work is copyrighted under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 2.5 License. See: