Re: Fair use (RE: electronic journals CCC)

[David Goodman <dgoodman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>]

You are quite right, Keith, that it is not any one university that buys
back its own research. It is the research community as a whole, which must
pay for the dissemination of the work, wherever it is done. It remains
true that the cost of paying for the research and for the dissemination of
the research is paid by the same sources, either grant or institutional
funding, and the two are not separate enterprises. The cost of the
research must, directly or indirectly, include the cost of distribution of
the results, or the research is useless.

The question though (and I say this without any knowledge of the specific
financial situation in your subject area) is whether the costs of
distributing the results under the present system is only what is neeeded,
or widely in excess of it. At least where some publishers are concerned,
it does seem to many of us-- both producers such as researchers or
distributors such as librarians (and publishers for that matter) -- that
in many case the cost is wildly excessive, and that a much simpler system
might do as well.

In your specific case, I ask you to consider, whether the costs of
collecting the small revenue for a print and electronic backfile is worth
it. Your society is, I am sure, dedicated to the growth of knowledge about
your subject, not the production of publications as an end in itself, and
therefore wants to do this extremely important but auxiliary function at
the lowest possible costs compatible with adequate quality.

The BioOne model may well be relevant in fields other than biology,
especially relatively small and specialized one. The situation of
organizations such as yours, and the points you raise, merit the attention
of SPARC.

Dr. David Goodman, Princeton University Biology Library				
dgoodman@princeton.edu            609-258-3235

On Mon, 14 May 2001, Keith Seitter wrote:

> I would like to respond back to this comment because it is one I hear a
> lot within the academic community and I think it is completely incorrect.
> 
> An institution is not "buying back" its own research and it is not "paying
> twice" for the results coming from its scholarly researchers.  When an
> institution purchases a subscription to a journal, it is paying for access
> to the results coming from research at OTHER institutions, prefiltered for
> quality and packaged in an easy to use format (whether that is print or
> electronic or both).  Since research at an institution by its scholars is
> critically dependent on building upon the work of others, the acquisition
> of that work in a form that provides efficient utilization is a wholly
> appropriate use for a portion of the funds used to support that research
> (no different than securing a needed piece of equipment). The view by some
> university administrators that libraries are only part of research
> dissemination and not fundamental to the research enterprise itself (and
> need not be funded accordingly) is abetted by this "paying twice"
> argument.
> 
> I will only marginally address the "moral obligation" to make the journal
> content "free" after some period of time by saying that some of us in the
> nonprofit publishing world are running at extremely tight margins so that
> we can keep the institutional subscription prices as low as possible.  
> For us, anything that seriously jeopardizes a source of income jeopardizes
> our ability to continue publishing journals.  For journals like ours,
> where the results published are not time critical at the scale of a few
> months and whose citation half-life is over ten years, it is likely that
> many subscribers would drop paid subscriptions if they could have free
> access after six months (or even a year).  Our "moral obligation" as a
> scientific and professional society is to produce the journals as a means
> of dissemination of knowledge.  Much as we might love to be in a position
> to give this all away, we need to maintain a revenue stream sufficient to
> continue producing the journals or we will not be able to continue our
> mission.
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. Keith L. Seitter               phone:  617-227-2426 ext. 220
> Deputy Executive Director          fax:    617-742-8718
> American Meteorological Society    e-mail: kseitter@ametsoc.org
> 45 Beacon Street
> Boston, MA 02108-3693              http://www.ametsoc.org/AMS
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> At 12:31 AM 5/14/01 -0400, you wrote:
> >Dear List!
> >
> >Another argument often is also not mentioned:
> >
> >Most of the scientific work done for a publication is financed by public
> >grants. So the libraries in the universities have to "bought back" their
> >own results spending public funds again. Using this system the scientific
> >community has to pay twice for getting their results, i.e. advancement of
> >science and knowledge. Is there no 'moral obligation' that these results
> >should be (say, after a waiting period of about 6 or 12 month) in public
> >domain?
> >
> >Best regards,
> >
> >- Karl-Josef Ziegler