Scholarly Communication

ACRL/MetroNYNew York, NY

December 3, 2004Frances Maloy

libfm@emory.edu

• Frances Maloy, Division Leader Access Services Emory University. Am here today in role as ACRL president

• Am so pleased to be here to talk with you about ACRL and about the issue of scholarly communication

Overview of talk

• What is Scholarly Communication

• What is the problem?

• Share ACRL initiatives

• Scholarly Communication in larger context of higher education and changes enabled by technology

Scholarly Communication

• System through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated, disseminated, and preserved.

• Publications in peer-reviewed journals (formal)

• Electronic listservs, etc. (informal)

• Public Good to faciliate inquiry and knowledge

What’s the problem?• Non-substitution of journals • Consolidation of publishing industry – open season on pricing;

– 4000 titles published by 6 publishers– Reed Elsiever publishes 1,850 titles alone

• Prices increase steeply – 215% for jrls between 1986-2001 (2x as fast as cost for health care)

• Large profits cited – Reed Elsiever 37% on average (1995-2001) as opposed to 5 % on average same period for non-profit publishers

• Quantity of scholarly journals increasing• Library budgets cut, flat, not keeping up with materials inflation• Limits to fair use (through licenses)• Libraries don’t like to cancel jrnls; want coverage of an area

Impact on Libraries

• Decreased buying power = decreased access to information

• Negative impact on books • Long term preservation of, access to,

information• Staff with legal, business skills and

knowleged to negotiate contracts• New work load to manage information on

contracts

What are the solutions?

• Authors retain copyright ownership• Less conglomerates more competition• Institutional Repositories/Open Archives Initiative

(immediately or after specified time period) e.g. Pub Med Central

• Open Access Journals (many flavors, forms- no subscription cost- funded by grants and institutions; authors pay up front, delay in making article freely available

• Faculty – just say no – authoring, referring, editors• Negotiating with publishers for control and affordable

prices – no more “big deal”

Is there an impact yet?

• Yes• I’d be nervous if I were Elsvier – not that I feel sorry for

them however.• Citicorp analysis of STM jrnl industry and the market

position of Reed Elsevier SPARC Newsletter 11/2/04– Open Access journals and archiving a trend– Libraries out of big deal– Library budgets maxed out– Universities recognizing rising jrnl costs and copyright are

reducing access to research– OA business model on funding agency makes sense not author

pays model-

• NIH proposal

Scholarly Communication Committee

• Monitor legislation and activities in arena

• Letter writing

• Education of members

• Document ACRL principles and strategies

• Document ACRL stance on Open Access

• Broad based support for legislation and change in how publishers operate – we are the market

ACRL Principles

• Broadest possible access to published research• Fair and reasonable prices for scholarly information• Competitive markets for scholarly info• Open access to scholarship• Innovations in publishing to reduce costs, speed delivery,

extend access• Quality assurance of publishing• Fair use • Preservation• Right to privacy in use of scholarly info

ACRL Initatives

• Endorse BOAI (budapest open access initiatve principles)

• Scholarly Communication Committee• Advocacy – letter writing, Library Legislative Day• Member SPARC• Member IAA• Education of members- SPARC/ACRL sponsored

workshops at ALA• Staff member to monitor legislation including that which

impacts scholarly communication• Revise author agreement for CRL and CRLNews• White paper on Open Access and ACRL publications

ACRL White paper on Open access

• ACRL is a publisher- 4 jrnls CRL, CRLNews, RBM and Choice

• Membership revenue:Member surveys- publications primary reason for joining

– would people continue to join if publications free?

• Subscription revenue: will individuals continue to pay for jrnls if open access?

• Publishing program makes money for its members to do programs members want

Put this in context of future

• In thinking about scholarly communication – don’t’ think in terms of how research is done now

Think in terms of 10-20 years- what will research be like then? How will users be interacting with information then?-May not be jrnls in future – IR’s and google type search engines that crawl for you on a given topic

• Core purpose – support teaching learning and research. What is now possible in HOW we do this?

Experiment play be open to ideas – listen to vendors what they are seeing

Bibliography• Rick Anderson, “Open Access in the Real World: Confronting

economic and legal reality”, CRLNews, 4/2004.• Mary Case, “Information Access Alliance: Challenging

anticompetitive behavior in academic publishing”, CRLNews, June 2004.

• Richard Edwards and David Shulenberger, “The High Cost of Scholarly Journals (and what to do about it)”, Change, Nov/Dec 2003.

• John Ewing,“Open access to journal won’t lower prices”, Chronicle, 10/1/05.

• David E. Shulenberger, “On scholarly evaluation and scholarly communication: increasing the volume of quality work”, CRLNews, September, 2001.

• SPARC Open Access Newsletter, “Citicorp report on Elsevier and open access”, 11/2/04 www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/11-02-04.htm

Web sites

• www.arl.org/sparc

• www.informationaccess.org

• www.ala.org/acrl