Stanford Libraries Re. NIH Notice on Enhanced Public Access to NIHResearch Information

[Liblicense-L Listowner <liblicen@pantheon.yale.edu>]

Of possible interest; sections excerpted below.

URL for full text of letter to Zerhouni:
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/staff/pubs/MAK_to_Zerhouni_041115.pdf

A complementary comment from the American Physiological Society:
http://www.the-aps.org/news/nihaccesscomments.htm
____

15 November 2004

Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni
Director
National Institutes of Health
9000 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, Maryland 20892

Re: NIH Notice on Enhanced Public Access to NIH Research Information
NOT-OD-04-64 (September 3, 2004)
Notice for Comment, 69 Fed. Reg. 56074 (September 17, 2004)

Dear Dr. Zerhouni:

[SNIP]

Additionally, the NIH proposal flies in the face of considerable
innovation and enormously improved public access already undertaken by
numerous publishers receiving services from HighWire Press, a not for
profit, enterprise of the Stanford University Libraries.  Since 1997, many
not for profit publishers associated with HighWire Press have engaged in
two programs of enhancing access to stm literature.  One of those
programs, free back issues (FBI), now presents over 770,000 articles in
the life sciences and medicine free along with numerous additional
Internet features to any and all readers around the world.  Another of
those programs, toll free linking, allows readers of any article (whether
free or controlled) in the suite of HighWire titles to read free the full
text article of any cited article that happens as well to be available
on-line through HighWire�s services; toll free linking probably accounts
for another 200,000 free articles thereby.  Let me compare the HighWire
Press (HW) enhanced public access program to the progress made by PubMed
Central (PMC) in the past few years.

PMC has 160 publications, from 23 different publishers. HW has 686
publications, from 130 different publishers (about 350 of them are life
science publications, from 129 publishers)

70% of the publications in PMC are from one publisher: the for-profit,
British-owned BioMed Central.  That publisher accounts for only 3% of the
articles in PMC however.  Furthermore, BioMed Central has been indexed and
included in Medline/PubMed before its articles achieved any particular
impact factor and before any citation studies had been made, purely on the
basis of a political decision concerning the business model, that of Open
Access/Author Pays.  The very same criticism might be leveled at the
inclusion of the publications of the Public Library of Science as well;
they have been included in Medline and PubMed before they have earned
inclusion, as all other publications have had to earn in the past, by
demonstrated interest of other scientific and clinical researchers in
their articles.

PMC has >325,000 free articles.
HW has >770,000 free articles.

PMC has 160 journals that provide free content.
HW has 214 journals that provide free content.

PMC has 330,000 total articles.
HW has 2 million total articles, 1,343,000 full text articles.

92% of the articles in PMC are also in HW.  So, other than the 3% of PMC
articles coming from BioMed Central, only an additional 5% of PMC articles
have been made more accessible than otherwise, and all of those are from
publishers not associated with HighWire Press and its free back issues
program.

50% of the publishers in PMC are also in HW

About 45% of the 200 most frequently cited STM journals are with HW;
About 7% of the 200 most frequently cited STM journals are in PMC.

5 of the top 6 general medical journals are with HW;
1 of the top 6 general medical journals is in PMC.

An easy conclusion, then, is that the not for profit publishers associated
with HighWire Press acting independently from any government regulation
have already done more for enhanced public access than the government�s
own efforts.  Rather than mandating by regulatory process enhancement of a
government program that appears to be at best a pale imitation of the
efforts of responsible publishers and their private not for profit
Internet service provider, HighWire Press, I suggest that the NIH and
those responsible publishers work together on ways to expand by example
public access while still making it possible for private American
publishing enterprises, namely the American scholarly societies, to
continue their good works.  Publishers should be encouraged, but not
required, to make their articles free after a period of time consistent
with their need to receive income from subscriptions or other sources.  
Publishers should decide what the period of time of controlled access
should be.  More encouragement and support for programs that emulate the
HighWire Press free back issues programs should be provided.  Further, the
proposals presented to you by Martin Frank of the American Physiological
Society for the signatory organizations to the DC Principles on 28 October
2004 and reiterated in a comment to you on the NIH proposal of 16 November
2994 that propose enhancements to the information indexed and presented by
Medline and PubMed are preferable in substance and effect to the current
NIH proposal.

[MUCH MORE SNIPPED]

Yours truly,

-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~
Michael A. Keller
  University Librarian
  Director of Academic Information Resources
  Publisher of HighWire Press
  Publisher of Stanford University Press
Stanford University

101 Green Library
Stanford, CA 94305-6004
U.S.A.

voice:     +1-650-723-5553
fax:       +1-650-725-4902
e-mail:    Michael.Keller@Stanford.edu
homepage:  http://highwire.stanford.edu/~mkeller/