Re: STM Statement on Open Access

[Steve Hitchcock <sh94r@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

A glib response to the STM publishers' statement below as far as open
access is concerned would be: so no news there then. But it raises more
important issues.

First, it is right to recognise the remarkable progress that journal
publishers have made in becoming digital in the last decade or so, as is
outlined. The statement welcomes the new open access publishers, as it
should (although it conspicuously avoids the term open access, referring
instead to 'wide and continuous dissemination'). But that is just the
starting point for where we are now.

The statement is a response to the open access movement as a whole, even
though it never mentions open access author self-archiving directly. Now
this element of the open access model is not predicated against journals
or even against subscription journals, as has often been stated in this
forum.  It recognises the important role of high quality peer reviewed
journals, which the archives supplement. What is needed in response from
publishers in statements like the one below is how they can support open
access archiving even if they do not offer open access themselves. Simple
measures such as writing into all agreements with authors the right to
self-archive their published papers would be a start.

Instead, the shortcoming of the statement is encapsulated in its use of
the term 'widely accessible' rather than openly accessible. In other
words, subscription publishers want to compete with open access archives
in terms of access, when they could deploy resources more efficiently by
focussing on other services that would benefit authors and readers.

Open access publishers such as those we have now focus resources on e.g.  
peer review, high production values and the production of preservable
formats, qualities that are accessible to all. Subscription journals have
the same values, but by competing in terms of access without offering open
access must by definition be wasting resources on effectively preventing
access to the majority. It is no longer necessary for this to happen.

This statement is an opportunity missed for publishers to recognise the
critical role of open access and of open access self-archiving and begin
to adjust their business models gradually even if they choose not to be
open access publishers.

Steve Hitchcock
IAM Group, School of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton SO17 1BJ,  UK
Email: sh94r@ecs.soton.ac.uk
Tel:  +44 (0)23 8059 3256     Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865