Chronicle of Higher Education: British Government Refuses to SupportOpen-Access Approach to Scientific Publishing

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

Of possible interest, excerpted from the Chronicle dated November 10, 2004
___

British Government Refuses to Support Open-Access Approach to Scientific
Publishing 
By DANIEL ENGBER

The British government has rejected most of the recommendations by a
parliamentary committee that favors making the results of state-supported
scientific research freely available.

The committee released a report in July supporting that approach, known as
open access, as a remedy for journals' increasing subscription prices and
for the growing restrictions on access to publicly financed research. In a
response dated November 1 but made public on Monday, the government
asserted that it "is not aware that there are major problems in accessing
scientific information," and that the publishing industry is both "healthy
and competitive."

In its original report, "Scientific Publications: Free for All?," the
Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons recommended that
all research papers be made freely available in digital archives and that
the government continue to experiment with an author-pays publishing
model, under which authors or research institutions pay to publish papers
that are then distributed at no charge (The Chronicle, July 20).

On both counts the government refused to intervene. In its response, it
supported the establishment of digital archives at research institutions,
but it argued that "each institution has to make its own decision about
institutional repositories depending on individual circumstances." And the
government said it had not seen enough evidence to support further
explorations of author-pays publishing.

The government document, according to the committee, represents "a
distillation of responses from all the government departments and other
government organizations that have an interest" in the committee's
recommendations.

The government's response was coordinated by the Department of Trade and
Industry, which one lawmaker accused of bowing to pressure from commercial
publishers. "It's not worth the paper it's written on," Ian Gibson,
chairman of the parliamentary committee, said of the response. "They're
obviously kowtowing to the industry."

The publishers welcomed the government's response. A spokesman for Reed
Elsevier, the world's largest publisher of scientific journals, called it
"a clear statement of support for the current market and the current
system, which confirms that the publishing market is competitive and
innovative."

Mr. Gibson, a Labor Party member of Parliament, also contended that the 
government had ignored the recommendations of its own Joint Information 
System Committee, an advisory group, and had favored instead the arguments 
put forth by the Department of Trade and Industry. 

[SNIP] 

Copyright 2004 Chronicle of Higher Education