The House of Commons Select Committee - Scientific Publications

["Adam Hodgkin" <adam.hodgkin@xrefer.com>]

The subissions to and the minutes of the House of Commons Select Committee
will in due course appear on the web, but in the meantime the readers of
this list might like to have an informal account of yesterday's meeting

http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/science_and_technology
_committee/scitech250204.cfm

By my estimate, in additon to the Committee members and Expert Witnesses,
there were 80+ citizens and inteterested parties in the Committee meeting
room. Deep green and gilt wallpaper - worthy of a Lord Chancellor - four
large chandeliers, leather backed chairs embossed with a portcullis emblem
and three enormous full-length portraits of 18th C parliamentarians on the
walls. The ushers were wearing buckled shoes; but Guy Fawkes was missing
and there were no fireworks; indeed, the committee's questioning perhaps
failed to get at the heart of the matter.

The first witnesses were from three large publishers (Blackwells, John
Wiley and Nature Publishing Group), and in the view of this observer they
appeared in a rather more defensive posture than Elsevier (who came
separately and later). Bob Campbell, for Blackwells, was keen to draw
attention to the economic and technological successes of the scientific
journal publishing industry, and the successes for the UK in particular.
His defence, was of the variety 'If its not broke, don't fix it'.
Convincing as far as it went, but did it go far enough? Evidently some
members of the Committee think that the system is broke or at least at
breaking point. Dr Jarvis, for John Wiley, perhaps lost the sympathy of
his audience when he appeared to be arguing that it was a good thing that
the general public cannot get access to specialist scientific journals, or
that if they absolutely MUST have access, it would be sufficient for them
to get access via document delivery (we will be encouraging the use of
hansom cabs or 'horseless carriages' to retrieve them next); but he had a
good point when arguing that a government requirement that scientists
should hand over copyright in their reports on scientific research, or
that OA publication would be a requirementn of government funding, would
create an unfortunate precedent in limiting the freedom of the scientific
authors and of the market, and could bring with it all the snags of
patronage.

Elsevier was represented by Crispin Davies and Arie Jongejan. Davies took
the initiative and came through confidently with a large array of positive
statistics in testimony to the success and value of the Science Direct
offering. He appeared to be momentarily discountenanced when Ian Gibson,
the Committee Chairman, said that it had been reported to him by a well
placed mole (subversive thought: are the British Secret service now
bugging Elseiver's conference rooms as well as Dr Kofi Annan at the UN?)
that Davies regarded the Committee Enquiry as a tiresome irrelevance, led
by some disillusioned academics, and was waiting for the fuss to die down.
Davies responded calmly enough, in the circumstances, that although
Elsevier have a lot of doubts about Open Access, they are keeping an open
mind about it. Could Elsevier yet surprise us all by embracing Open
Access? Stranger things have happened, and Elsevier are better placed to
make the switch than most of their competitors, having more to lose and
more to gain.

If this was a contest, or a trial by argument, then the committee's
examination of these publishers was at best a draw. Perhaps Elsevier even
won on points. But the issue is not going to be decided by a legislative
inquiry, and it could be that the finnicky discusion of pricing, bundling,
journal downloads and consortium access missed the key issue. The key
issue being the gathering storm of well informed scientific opinion which
proposes that science will be conducted more efficiently if (or 'when')
research is published in an Open Access method, and that for this reason
OA is going to happen. 

The publishers seemed to be confident that their proprietary journal
publishing platforms are doing the job, but if the scientists and
researchers who publish and create them vote with their feet the
professional publishers will move to re-establish new positions in an
increasingly OA environment. If there was a point which the committee's
question missed, it was to probe the publishers on the inefficiency of
their proprietary technology platforms, which create complications,
inconsistent interfaces, huge expense (internal and external costs) and
'dead ground' in the development of electronic libraries and efficient
scientific communication. The proposed advantages of an OA approach to
primary scientific research was not the focus of the committee's
questioning; perhaps it will be next week when Harold Varmus will be
attending as a representative of the scientific research community.


Best wishes

Adam
Adam Hodgkin