Re: Open Access vs. NIH Back Access and Nature's Back-Sliding (fwd)

[Joseph Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com>]

I am not sure why Dr. Swan makes the arguments she does, nor why some
publishers choose to engage them.  The question is not whether
self-archiving or institutional archiving hurts or could hurt the
sales of journals.  This is a matter of property, which the publishers
own and can do with as they please, provide they (a) comply with the
law and (b) observe the terms of their contracts.  There are marketing
considerations, of course (e.g., will permitting self-archiving build
good will and eventually lead to financial gain?), but these are the
publishers' marketing considerations, not the world's.  

I may think my neighbor is a fool for smoking cigarettes, but they are his
cigarettes and his lungs.  Authors who do not like the property
relationships that publishers insist upon have a very powerful course open
to them, namely, not to submit their work for publication.  With all the
venues for publication now possible with network media (blogs,
self-archiving, institutional repositories, mailgroups, etc.), I don't see
what all the fuss is about.  If publishers don't add value, ignore them.  
If they do add value, respect them.

Joe Esposito

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:47:44 -0000
> From: Alma Swan <a.swan@TALK21.COM>
> To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM@LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
> Subject: Re: Open Access vs. NIH Back Access and Nature's Back-Sliding
> 
> In recent days there has been some discussion as to whether NIH's retreat
> may in fact be due to a fear of adverse effects on the scholarly
> publishing industry if immediate self-archiving were to be mandated by NIH
> for its grantholders
> (http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/02-02-05.htm). And,
> certainly, the Nature Publishing Group appears to be changing its policy
> on self-archiving. It is not easy to follow NPG's arguments so far because
> they are rather complicated, but it appears to be suggesting that it is
> aiding Open Access by moving from allowing immediate self-archiving by
> authors in their institutional repositories to allowing it only after a
> period of six months post-publication of an article. The logic of this is
> not at all clear. It would be very helpful if NPG would clearly explain
> the causal inferences and its policy but one has to infer that NPG has
> apprehensions about a possible adverse effect of self-archiving upon its
> business.
> 
> Many publishers, particularly some learned societies, share these
> apprehensions and that is perfectly understandable if they base their view
> of the future on imaginings rather than on actual evidence.
> 
> In the case of self-archiving, there is absolutely no need for this sort
> of self-terrorising. The experiment has been done and the results are
> clear-cut. Fourteen years ago the arXiv was set up (www.arxiv.org). It
> houses preprints and postprints in physics, predominantly in the areas of
> high-energy physics, condensed matter physics and astrophysics. It is the
> norm for researchers in these areas to post their articles either before
> or after refereeing to this repository. In 2003, the 421 physics journals
> listed in ISI's SCI published a total of 116,723 articles. The arXiv
> receives approximately 42,000 articles per annum, meaning that around a
> third of all physics research articles appear not only in journals but
> ALSO in the arXiv.
> 
> Have physics publishers gone to the wall in the last 14 years?  No, and
> not only have they continued to survive, they have also continued to
> thrive. I have recently asked questions about this of two of the big
> learned society publishers in physics, the American Physical Society in
> the US and the Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd in the UK. There are
> two salient points to note:
> 
> 1. Neither can identify any loss of subscriptions to the journals that
> they publish as a result of the arXiv.
> 
> 2. Subscription attrition, where it is occurring, is the same in the areas
> that match the coverage of the arXiv as it is across any other areas of
> physics that these societies publish in.
> 
> Both societies, moreover, see actual benefits for their publishing
> operations arising from the existence of arXiv. The APS has "cooperated
> closely with arXiv including establishing a mirror (jointly with
> Brookhaven National Laboratory)... We also revised our copyright statement
> to be explicitly in favor of author self-archiving. These efforts
> strengthened (rather than weakened) Physical Review D [an APS journal that
> covers high-energy physics] ...I would say it is likely we maintained
> subscriptions to Physical Review D that we may otherwise have lost if we
> hadn't been so pro-arXiv .."
> 
> In answer to the question "Does arXiv worry or threaten your business?"
> the APS answered: "We don't consider it a threat. We expect to continue to
> have a symbiotic relationship with arXiv. As long as peer review is valued
> by the community (and it seems to be), we will be doing peer review. While
> the APS aspires to open access and is not threatened by arXiv.org, we do
> have strong reservations about government requirements for open access."
> 
> The Institute of Physics Publishing's response was: "IOPP's experience as
> a learned society publisher illustrates the strong synergies and mutual
> benefits that currently exist between major peer-reviewed journals, such
> as our Classical and Quantum Gravity, and the arXiv e-print server. Both
> systems continue to serve the scientific community very effectively.
> Journals act as the "brand", setting standards for scientific quality. Our
> authors and editors tell us that they value publishing in a peer-reviewed
> journal because this continues as an essential requirement for
> establishing reputation and authority of the research they publish. Whilst
> posting an pre-print or post-print is becoming more of an essential in
> some areas of the physics community for immediate and wide dissemination,
> we do not see the arXiv or repositories threatening our business."
> 
> Publishers who prefer to base their future strategies on experimental data
> rather than untested apprehensions may be heartened by these findings.
> Institutions that prefer explicitly to help their researchers to
> disseminate their research results should provide archives for the
> purpose. And researchers who prefer to have their results available to as
> many people as possible - WHILE STILL PUBLISHING IN JOURNALS OF THEIR
> CHOICE, even if they are subscription-based publications - should get on
> with self-archiving their articles.
> 
> Alma Swan
> __________________________
> Alma P Swan, BSc, PhD, MBA
> Director
> Key Perspectives Ltd
> Topsham
> Devon
> EX3 0EP
> United Kingdom