Re: AAP/PSP Open letter to Dr. Zerhouni (NIH)

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

Heather:  As Joe Esposito has noted here, funding agencies are certainly
entitled to set the terms and conditions under which funding will be
granted, and those who want to accept the funding need to live by those
conditions.  We are seeing changes, either mandated or suggested, from
several biomed funding agencies these days and may expect more.

As to why there would be concerns on the publisher (or researcher) side
about the recent NIH, recommendations, that's not at all difficult to
understand!

o Losing some flexibility, as a publisher or editorial member, to craft
your own business plan:  So far, many, even most, STM publishers have been
searching for ways to give away as much of their literature without charge
as possible, while maintaining revenue streams.  (Often, this desire on
the part of publishers is motivated by a commitment to expanding access.)  
These efforts have resulted in the multiple flavors of Open Access (and
substantial contention about definition of the term).  Publishers and
their editorial boards have been spending a lot of time thinking about
access issues (this is good) and developing or readjusting strategies for
their publications.  Some may think the change is coming too slowly and
would like to speed it up; some think it's happening too quickly... a
pretty normal diversity of opinions is being considered, i.e.:  healthy
debate.

o The recommendations re. NIH/PMC's expanded role sees this particular
granting agency, (thought of here as "the government") stepping in to make
a correction to a "marketplace" that's not working as well as it should
be, i.e., biomed journal subscriptions are costly and out of financial
reach of many.  The government proposes a solution to that problem by
making the articles free from zero days to six months of formal peer
reviewed publication.  Some likely effects:

* Survival of the fittest will happen, but quite differently than today,
under a markedly changed set of "rules".  I.e., there is a great deal of
consensus around Joe's point that the proposed requirements would indeed
withdraw capital from less urgently needed titles; those journals might
find a new business plan or possibly they might not (in fact a number
won't be able to); that poses a particular financial threat to at least
the smaller learned societies -- no question.  Will they find a way to
survive?  It depends... I think librarians can be glib about saying sure,
they will, but most of us have too little knowledge to be more than naive
about these survival issues.

* The publishing enterprises, such as our learned societies, have had
little to no say in such a mandated change, and in fact (see above) are
the most threatened by it.  For the most part, they have less financial
cushion and less flexibility in reimagining their programs.  I think we
could should rue the demise of at least some proportion of this group not
only for journals but also for their wider societal mission.

o Role of PMC/NIH:  There was a great deal of discussion at last week's
IFLA, for example, that under the proposed change, PMC/NIH (read
"government," which for many US citizens stands for "big brother" and
"interference") will become, defacto, the publisher of biomed STM
articles.  This type of power concentration is thought to have a number of
negative consequences.  Again, this kind of concern may be a particularly
US phenomenon.

o NIH should have large amounts of money to invest in long-term digital
preservation, and has been doing this already.  This kind of investment is
very beneficial for all, so probably doesn't belong in the "publisher
concerns" column.

o Copyright: I've wondered how US legislation will be rewritten, as it
would need to be.  At this point, Section 105 of the US Copyright Act
declares that the created work of government employees on government time
is in the public domain.  In this case, Section 105 language will need a
significant adjustment: (1) either government funded work, even when not
performed by government employees, will be "government work" by
definition; or (2) private researchers, when working under government
funding, become at that time government employees.  (This is a variant of
the Martin Sabo bill of last year, showing up in a different way.)  The
legislation would need to be clear both when the articles come into the
public domain and that authors' moral rights are being retained even as
the other basic rights of copyright would not be.  (I think this kind of
legislation could be a real issue for institutions benefitting from
government funding -- universities, for example.)

Random Saturday morning thoughts, Ann Okerson/ liblicense-l moderator 
Yale Library

> One thing that seems clear from this letter is that the signatories are
> ardent opponents of open access.  This is useful to know, since some have
> taken actions that would appear to suggest movement in the direction of
> open access, for example the Washington DC Principles' Group's commitment
> to making journal articles openly accessible after 6 months.  Others
> mentioned below, I believe, have taken the apparently OA-friendly step of
> going "green", providing permission for authors to self-archive.
> 
> To me, it seems difficult to reconcile the words in this letter with these
> actions.  One possible explanation is that the signatories feel threatened
> by open access, and are trying to overtly appear to conform with the
> obvious desire for OA, perhaps to avoid criticism, while at the same time,
> the signatories appear to be actively fighting open access with all their
> might.
> 
> If there is an alternative explanation for such apparently contradictory
> behavior, I would be interested in hearing it.  Would the signatories
> perhaps like to provide such an explanation?
> 
> my personal perspective,
> 
> Heather Morrison