ALPSP response to the EC report
The ALPSP has released its response (May 30, 2006) to the EC report and its OA recommendations (March 31, 2006). Excerpt:
Although the study was an independent one and has been published as
the basis for consultation, from which policy decisions may subsequently
follow, the Commission’s own press release did not mention that the study
was independent, and thus implied that its conclusions and
recommendations were supported by the Commission….We are concerned at the suggestion that the EC should mandate self-archiving
for the results of EC-funded research. The primary output of
most research is data; in their raw form (before any third party has
invested in making it usable and retrievable through a database) we fully
support the view that such data should indeed, be freely available. The
same could be said of any project reports submitted to the funder.
However, bringing to the market, through a reputable journal, one or
more articles which describe and interpret the findings is a costly
business. Great care is necessary to ensure that any alternative free
access does not undermine the journals in which scholars wish to publish
their work….Different time delays of up to a year or even
longer may be necessary, depending on whether the subject is a rapidlymoving
one, and on the frequency of publication of the journal; a fixed
period should not be arbitrarily imposed by the research funder….Where the article is made freely available by the publisher (whether in a
wholly or partly Open Access journal, or as a special arrangement with the
funder) it is preferable that users have access to the version on the
publisher’s site where it will include all the functionality added by the
publisher, such as links to cited articles and supplementary materials. In
no circumstances should the funder or any other third party take the
author’s manuscript and ‘re-publish’ it with functionality which competes
with that added by the publisher….The authors appear to recognise (page 71) that, once all or most of a
journal’s content was easily accessible in free archives, journal
subscriptions would be adversely affected. We are already finding that,
where this is the case (e.g. in physics and related disciplines) downloads
on the publisher’s own site are falling dramatically as usage migrates to
the free site. While librarians do not yet see free archives as a substitute
for subscriptions – they would need to contain near to 100% of a journal’s
content for this to be the case – they do already see usage as an
important driver of cancellation decisions. We therefore fear that it can
only be a matter of time before cancellations follow.
Comment. I’ve often replied to the concern that mandated self-archiving will harm journal subscriptions. But to recap quickly: on the one hand, all the evidence to date suggests that there is no harm, even in fields where the rate of self-archiving approaches 100%. And on the other hand, even if there will be harm, the public interest in public access to publicly-funded research takes priority over the economic interests of a private-sector industry. The ALPSP response emphasizes the fear of economic harm to journals, but doesn’t even address the second fork in this two-prong debate, why the economic prosperity of publishers (even if proved to be at stake in these policies) should trump the public interest. As I put it in SOAN for 11/2/04, “publishers who object to [national OA policies] are defending the remarkable proposition that they should control access to research conducted by others, written up by others, and funded by taxpayers.”
source: ALPSP response to the EC report
