STM responds to U. S. Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Report

["Janice Kuta, STM" <kuta@stm-assoc.org>]

The following should be of interest.

Press Release: 15 January 2010

STM responds to U. S. Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Report and 
Recommendations

STM applauds the efforts of the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable 
(set up last year by the US House of Representatives Committee on 
Science and Technology in collaboration with the White House 
Office of Science and Technology Policy [OSTP]) in seeking to 
establish broad stakeholder agreement and for involving leading 
researchers and incorporating their research in the Roundtable 
deliberations.

STM supports the general principles that the Roundtable has 
generated: the critical need for peer review, the importance of 
sustainable business models, the goal of widening access, and the 
move to improved utility and interoperability. We also strongly 
support the recommendation that OSTP establish a public advisory 
committee on which interested parties, including STM publishers 
are represented.

STM takes issue, however, with some of the other recommendations 
and goals expressed in the Report. Firstly, while STM supports US 
agencies in the development of public access policies to the 
results of research funded by those agencies, we do not agree 
that the scholarly articles arising from publisher investment and 
value add fall under this category. Government research grants 
currently cover the cost of the research only. Government 
research grants do not cover the costs of publication.

Secondly, while welcoming the consultation and collaboration that 
has occurred with our industry, STM believes the goal of US 
agencies in establishing a "global publishing system" is 
redundant and wasteful and ignores the essentially international 
nature of STM publishing, which has, without any government 
assistance anywhere in the world, enabled more access to more 
people than at any time in history.

Thirdly, if there is to be no compensation for the use of journal 
mediated content, STM supports the need for embargo periods. 
There is, however, no evidence whatsoever to support the 
recommendation that embargo periods of 0 to 12 months could be 
adopted for =93many sciences=94 without problem. STM is leading a 
three year experiment part-funded by the European Commission (the 
PEER Project) to find out the effects of various embargo periods 
on journals. We strongly encourage such an evidence-based policy 
investigation in the US as well.

Finally, while STM supports the recommendation that the final 
published article should be given primacy (the so called VoR or 
Version of Record) over the proliferation of other imperfect 
earlier versions, it is through this final version =96 and the 
creation and maintenance of their authoritative journals =96 that 
STM publishers provide significant added value; to make final 
published articles (VoRs) free immediately upon publication must 
involve some mechanism of financial compensation.

Commenting on the Report, the Chief Executive Officer of STM, 
Michael Mabe said:

"STM member companies publish the largest number of open access 
articles in the world. They have taken the lead in discussions 
with Funding Agencies regarding their access policies and many 
have made their final published articles available immediately 
under various business models, including open access. The 
Roundtable Report represents a good-faith effort to maximise the 
public good in a sustainable way but still needs more work to 
attain this lofty goal."

******
STM is an international association of about 100 scientific, 
technical, medical and scholarly publishers, collectively 
responsible for more than 60% of the global annual output of 
research articles, 55% of the active research journals and the 
publication of tens of thousands of print and electronic books, 
reference works and databases. We are the only international 
trade association equally representing all types of STM 
publishers - large and small companies, not for profit 
organizations, learned societies, traditional, primary, secondary 
publishers and new entrants to global publishing.

Contact:
For further information, contact Michael Mabe, STM, Prama House, 
267 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7HT, UK
tel: +44 1865 339324/fax: +44 1865 339325
e-mail mailto:mabe@stm-assoc.org


Janice E. Kuta
Director of Membership & Marketing
International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical 
Publishers