Re: Stanford Libraries Re. NIH Notice on Enhanced Public Access to NIH Research Information

[Heather Morrison <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>]

In spite of the obviously heated disagreement, it appears that both sides
(publishers and the NIH) are basically pursuing exactly the same course of
action:  making articles openly accessible after a time delay.  Kudos to
the publishers for pursuing this strategy on their own.

The success of the DC Principles approach would appear to suggest that a
great many publishers are in fact convinced that an approach very similar
to that of the NIH can pursued without harm to their businesses or
societies, despite recent statements to the contrary.

For the user, there are very good reasons to pursue the NIH approach, in
addition to the delayed access already provided by publishers.  This is
because the PubMed index is such a good, focused search tool in the area
of medicine, that there will be significant value to providing direct
links to articles from the index, even if the article is freely available
elsewhere.

The underlying similarities between the two approaches suggest more reason
to hope for reconciliation than is immediately apparent.

> From my viewpoint, it would be easier to take the concerns of the
publishers seriously if they would support the NIH proposal, which is so
similar to what they are doing on their own, and focus on working
constructively with the NIH to develop an implementation plan that takes
into account the rights of both taxpayers and publishers.

As for the inclusion of journals in Medline, I would encourage the NIH to
consider becoming even more inclusive.  Journal publishers in developing
countries have found that their publications have been excluded from
western-based indexing services such as Medline.  There are many fine,
open access journals from developing countries in the area of medicine -
indexing these would immediately provide more information to Medline users
(free through PubMed).  Many of these journals are from Latin American
countries; the large hispanic population in the U.S. could make good use
of much of this material.  This would provide more free access to U.S.
taxpayers - this time, to research funded by someone else's government.

cheers,

Heather Morrison

On 18-Nov-04, at 4:46 AM, Liblicense-L Listowner wrote:

> Of possible interest; sections excerpted below.
>
> URL for full text of letter to Zerhouni:
> http://www-sul.stanford.edu/staff/pubs/MAK_to_Zerhouni_041115.pdf
>
> A complementary comment from the American Physiological Society:
> http://www.the-aps.org/news/nihaccesscomments.htm
> ____
>
> 15 November 2004
>
> Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni
> Director
> National Institutes of Health
> 9000 Rockville Pike
> Bethesda, Maryland 20892
>
> Re: NIH Notice on Enhanced Public Access to NIH Research Information
> NOT-OD-04-64 (September 3, 2004)
> Notice for Comment, 69 Fed. Reg. 56074 (September 17, 2004)
>
> Dear Dr. Zerhouni:
>
> [SNIP]
>
> Additionally, the NIH proposal flies in the face of considerable
> innovation and enormously improved public access already undertaken by
> numerous publishers receiving services from HighWire Press, a not for
> profit, enterprise of the Stanford University Libraries.  Since 1997,
> many not for profit publishers associated with HighWire Press have
> engaged in two programs of enhancing access to stm literature.  One of
> those programs, free back issues (FBI), now presents over 770,000
> articles in the life sciences and medicine free along with numerous
> additional Internet features to any and all readers around the world.  
> Another of those programs, toll free linking, allows readers of any
> article (whether free or controlled) in the suite of HighWire titles to
> read free the full text article of any cited article that happens as
> well to be available on-line through HighWire’s services; toll free
> linking probably accounts for another 200,000 free articles thereby.  
> Let me compare the HighWire Press (HW) enhanced public access program to
> the progress made by PubMed Central (PMC) in the past few years.
>
> PMC has 160 publications, from 23 different publishers. HW has 686
> publications, from 130 different publishers (about 350 of them are life
> science publications, from 129 publishers)
>
> 70% of the publications in PMC are from one publisher: the for-profit,
> British-owned BioMed Central.  That publisher accounts for only 3% of
> the articles in PMC however.  Furthermore, BioMed Central has been
> indexed and included in Medline/PubMed before its articles achieved any
> particular impact factor and before any citation studies had been made,
> purely on the basis of a political decision concerning the business
> model, that of Open Access/Author Pays.  The very same criticism might
> be leveled at the inclusion of the publications of the Public Library of
> Science as well; they have been included in Medline and PubMed before
> they have earned inclusion, as all other publications have had to earn
> in the past, by demonstrated interest of other scientific and clinical
> researchers in their articles.
>
> PMC has >325,000 free articles.
> HW has >770,000 free articles.
>
> PMC has 160 journals that provide free content.
> HW has 214 journals that provide free content.
>
> PMC has 330,000 total articles.
> HW has 2 million total articles, 1,343,000 full text articles.
>
> 92% of the articles in PMC are also in HW.  So, other than the 3% of PMC
> articles coming from BioMed Central, only an additional 5% of PMC
> articles have been made more accessible than otherwise, and all of those
> are from publishers not associated with HighWire Press and its free back
> issues program.
>
> 50% of the publishers in PMC are also in HW
>
> About 45% of the 200 most frequently cited STM journals are with HW;
> About 7% of the 200 most frequently cited STM journals are in PMC.
>
> 5 of the top 6 general medical journals are with HW;
> 1 of the top 6 general medical journals is in PMC.
>
> An easy conclusion, then, is that the not for profit publishers
> associated with HighWire Press acting independently from any government
> regulation have already done more for enhanced public access than the
> government’s own efforts.  Rather than mandating by regulatory process
> enhancement of a government program that appears to be at best a pale
> imitation of the efforts of responsible publishers and their private not
> for profit Internet service provider, HighWire Press, I suggest that the
> NIH and those responsible publishers work together on ways to expand by
> example public access while still making it possible for private
> American publishing enterprises, namely the American scholarly
> societies, to continue their good works.  Publishers should be
> encouraged, but not required, to make their articles free after a period
> of time consistent with their need to receive income from subscriptions
> or other sources. Publishers should decide what the period of time of
> controlled access should be.  More encouragement and support for
> programs that emulate the HighWire Press free back issues programs
> should be provided.  Further, the proposals presented to you by Martin
> Frank of the American Physiological Society for the signatory
> organizations to the DC Principles on 28 October 2004 and reiterated in
> a comment to you on the NIH proposal of 16 November 2994 that propose
> enhancements to the information indexed and presented by Medline and
> PubMed are preferable in substance and effect to the current NIH
> proposal.
>
> [MUCH MORE SNIPPED]
>
> Yours truly,
>
> -^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~-^~
> Michael A. Keller
>   University Librarian
>   Director of Academic Information Resources
>   Publisher of HighWire Press
>   Publisher of Stanford University Press
> Stanford University
> e-mail:    Michael.Keller@Stanford.edu
> homepage:  http://highwire.stanford.edu/~mkeller/