Science Online: Reflections and Responses

[Ann Okerson <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

This message is being sent for Mike Spinella of Science (AAAS), as ASCII
text of an attachment he directed to liblicense-l.

---------- Forwarded message ---------- 
David, and liblicense-l readers,

Thanks to David Goodman for the plug for Science Online. Anyone who wants
to follow up on his suggestion that you purchase access, feel free to call
me at 202 326-6424 or email me (mspinell@aaas.org).

A host of other substantive points have arisen over the past week or two
that I need to respond to. I have tried to gather all the relevant
postings below this message, so you don't have to hunt around for which
part of this thread I might be addressing. My apologies in advance for
this long email, but here is my attempt to address all these points at
once:

1) Science Express is available to non-members on a pay-per-view basis at
the same moment that it becomes available to our members. Just because
something isn't free, or isn't convenient, doesn't mean it isn't
'available'.

2) Science reaches 135,000 members in print and they all have the right to
access Science Express. Any reasonable assessment of the likely readers
who need immediate access to a given scientific article would have to
figure that our membership represents a pretty significant portion of that
group, and not merely a "small minority."

3) When the Science editors designate an article as eligible for Science
Express, they alert the author in advance. If it's really a disservice to
them, they can opt out. I checked with the deputy managing editor closest
to Science Express and he reports that authors have been eager to appear
in Science Express.

4) "suppose Science provided individual subscribers the articles now, and
the library the articles in 6 months. suppose 12 months. Suppose 5 years.
What is the fundamental difference between these and 3 weeks?" The
fundamental difference between 3 weeks and 6 months or more is a very
substantial amount of time, for one thing. Other than directly competing
or collaborating researchers, it is rather a stretch to claim that a
difference of a few weeks really amounts to an appreciable gap in
information access. It's harder to make that case with a 6 month gap;
harder still with 1 or 5 years.

Furthermore, I believe this point glosses over the fact that it is a
difference in kind, not just in degree. Science Express articles are
posted in a preliminary form, not their final edited and enhanced form.
The work of our editors enhances the clarity and usefulness of the work,
as well as its comprehensibility to a wider audience. I don't say this to
diminish the quality of the work that authors turn over to us - everything
in Science Express has completed the rigorous peer review process here, so
it's excellent work already - but rather to assert that Science really
does add value to the publishing process. And it is the 'final' work that
we present to the world as definitive, in print and online, and at the
same time for everyone.

5) Questions arose about the likelihood of substantive changes to the
article between posting in Science Express and in final form. To answer
Rick's question, we do not anticipate changes to the data or to
conclusions: all that should be worked out in the peer review process
before acceptance. That doesn't mean that the final form won't include
important and useful clarifications though. I don't mean to quibble over
semantics, but I believe Bernd-Christoph Kaemper's use of the term
'cosmetic' is slightly misleading and (perhaps unintentionally)
pejorative. Still, as distinguished from dramatic, conclusion-changing
corrections, it would be correct to say that the final version will be the
same article, in essence, as the Science Express version.

Another concern has to do with how long a Science Express article might be
posted awaiting finalization. We do not delay the finalization process for
any articles appearing in Science Express - if anything we accelerate it.
So there is no basis to fear that Science Express will become a holding
ground for giving members a really long early look.

6) "people will be most unlikely to decide to become members on this basis
alone." If it isn't really such a valuable benefit, what is all the fuss
about? Obviously, we think it's valuable, or we wouldn't be offering it.
We are a membership organization, and we will do things to serve our
members directly. How in the world can there be any question of the
propriety of such a plainly legitimate behavior?

In any case, the quote also exaggerates the role that we expect Science
Express to play. Our value proposition to members is not that they should
pay for membership in order solely to get access to Science Express, as
your note implies. We offer a range of benefits to members. We are
developing more this year, and more still will be offered in 2002. The
price for personal membership should come with lots of access to lots of
information and services. That's what makes it a good deal, even at the
ostensibly 'high' price, compared to generic institutional access. Members
get access to the entire digital archive of Science at JSTOR, from volume
I, number 1. They can access Science's Next Wave and Science NOW. They
will soon have access to an online Member directory. They get print
Science; and yes they get Science Express.

Probably no single benefit in that list, with the exception of print
Science, is enough by itself to cause people to decide to become members.
Taken together, though, it's a pretty dynamic offering and a powerful
loyalty builder (we hope!). Librarians should hope along with us that it
works: retaining a strong member base is what keeps the quality of Science
high and the price relatively low. If we go the other direction, prices to
libraries can only go up!

Mike Spinella

__________________

I HAVE TRIED TO APPEND ALL RELEVANT POSTINGS FROM THIS THREAD BELOW.
APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE IF I LEFT SOMETHING OF IMPORTANCE OUT.

from RICK ANDERSON POSTING OF MAY 26:

Mike,�can you clarify? Would a researcher ever need to worry about a 
can you clarify? Would a researcher ever need to worry about a change in
the substance of an article between its SciExpress and print version, or
can Science say with a reasonable degree of certainty that the only
changes would be cosmetic?

________________

POSTED BY Bernd-Christoph Kaemper, Stuttgart University Library ON MAY 22:

Rick wrote (with respect to Science Online)

> The fact that this level of service doesn't include extras
> (like pre-publication article access) is fine with us, as long as it
> includes the basics (like access to articles as soon as they're
> published). 

Sorry, but that's not true. It's not pre-publication access with Science.
ScienceExpress articles are considered published (and citable) as soon as
they are out in the online version. The rest is just cosmetics. You could
even say that the practice of Science is worse because it concerns
refereed primary research articles that immediately get cited while the
embargo of Nature affected "only" other material. And I can assure you
that libraries get routinely requests from users for that material or are
pressed to buy an article in advance. By the way, I bet that Nature will
soon follow the example of Science. It is already forseeable if you look
carefully at the language of their new site license for Nature.

But it doesn't really matter if publishers try to restrict this to
subscribers. Authors will care for themselves. It will be enough if
authors put their material on e-print servers (set up by university
libraries) as soon as they get it published (for Journals like Science or
Nature, where there is some "risk" involved) or even before that (for
other journals) - Harnads subversive proposal. The OAi (Open Archives
Initiative) standard is there, and it will be implemented on a broad scale
very soon (this summer there will be several implementation workshops in
Germany, for example). Publishers will not like it but scientists will
demand it. Science and Nature have so many added value features to offer
that I don't fear for their future. It does not have to be the bottle neck
of advance or delayed access which is not at all in the interest of the
authors.

I certainly agree with you that libraries can provide only as much as they
can within the constraints of their budget. But we will make our faculty
aware that it is their responsibility to make sure that the articles they
write get an exposure as widely as possible and we will do what is needed
to assist them in that.

Bernd-Christoph Kaemper, Stuttgart University Library

_______________

from DAVID GOODMAN'S MESSAGE OF 5/19:

Michael, I am not objecting here to your pricing policies. I am objecting
to your restricted access, which is not merely useless because:

> [you] can hardly expect to get more than a trivial number of
> additional electronic personal subscribers by adding access to such
> a small amount of material. and are merely annoying the majority of
> your electronic users, who use the library subscriptions; people
> will be most unlikely to decide to become members on this basis=20
> alone.

but unethical, as I explained again in a posting a little earlier today.

_____

from DAVID GOODMAN'S EARLIER MESSAGE OF 5/19:

>>> dgoodman@Princeton.EDU 05/19/01 09:51AM >>>
I think it ethical for a journal publisher to charge an individual for
such convenience features as a personal print copy, but not for provision
of content that is not available to the library, or that is available
before the library's.

The university library exists to provide sources of information for the
members of that institution to access. There is such a wide range of
possible information sources that it is impossible for each student and
teacher to acquire them all independently; rather, they acquire it
cooperatively through the library. The number of sources is so great that
it cannot be practically acquired and accessed unless the university
library, acting as an agent for its clients, acquires it and makes it
available as a centrally provided resource. The library serves as an
economic equalizer--while typically the faculty can afford to purchase
basic journals and books, the students can at best be expected to purchase
their textbooks, and supplementary material beyond that is provided for
them in common by the library.

Rick, suppose Science provided individual subscribers the articles now,
and the library the articles in 6 months. Suppose 12 months. Suppose 5
years. What is the fundamental difference between these and 3 weeks? In
any case the journal publishes information to make it available, and the
authors publish in it to make it available. This works, and people access
it, because their institutions can afford it. Otherwise, why run a library
at all? Let everyone buy personal subscriptions to what they want, and if
it is too expensive for the students, too bad for them. We cannot say that
a university library is responsible for providing a minimal service only
and that good service must be paid for extra. Within a research
university, prompt information provision is a basic necessity, not a
luxury.

I urge that libraries assist the authors of the highlighted articles in
Science to realize that the advance exposure to their articles does not
apply to all their readers, but only the small minority with personal
memberships. They are then likely to realize that their best interest lies
is persuading the editor that all their readers see their work as early as
possible.

David Goodman
Biology Librarian and Co-chair, Electronic Journals Task force
Princeton University Library
Princeton, NJ 08544-0001
e-mail: dgoodman@princeton.edu=20

____

Rick Anderson wrote:

>Rick, you have it backwards. The library, who pays the most (on the order
>of several thousand dollars, gets the version without the in-press
>articles. The individual subscriber, who pays much less, gets the version
> > with the in-press articles.

No. The library pays a larger invoice than an individual does, but the
library is not an individual subscriber -- at UNR, it represents about
13,000 users, none of whom has paid anything approaching the cost of an
individual subscription. In the case of Science: if a student at UNR opts
to spend $77 and subscribe on her own, she gets her own weekly print copy
and online access to pre-publication content (she pays more, and she gets
more). If she opts to spend nothing, and settle for access through the
library, she has to share a print copy with her compadres and settle for
less-current online access (she pays less, and she gets less). There is
nothing scandalous about this; in fact, I think I'll go out on a limb and
say that the library and its community get a pretty good deal here --
given that each community member's access costs us about 27 cents. The
fact that an individual can opt to pay a premium and get a premium service
doesn't make our deal any less acceptable.

-------------
Rick Anderson
Electronic Resources/Serials Coordinator
The University Libraries
University of Nevada, Reno
rickand@unr.edu

--end--