Changing times for academic libraries

tangognat writes “Richard C. Atkinson writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the problems that academic libraries face with current trends in academic publishing.
http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i11/11b01601.htm“

November 4, 2003 by Libraries 5

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5 Responses

  1. mcbride says:
    November 4, 2003 at 9:30 am

    My opinion’s worth less that the electrons…
    I’m of the mindset that instead of more ‘open access’ journals, that publishers should be gently encouraged to lower the cost of journal subscriptions to academic and public libraries. Congress should step in, because a corporate entity (in general) is causing public research dollars and results to be less effective than they should be. No academic library should have to cut access to information, otherwise the quality of the research will begin to deteriorate.

    PLoS is just one of many that have sought to reduce costs. Others have tried to push more electronic….and I still think thats the way to go for academic research. I loved getting print circulation of my favorite journals, but I’d gladly go to electronic table of contents/document delivery to control costs. I’ll just spend more on inkjet ink to print those special articles out.

    Reply
  2. Walt says:
    November 4, 2003 at 9:35 pm

    Re:My opinion’s worth less that the electrons…
    “Gently encouraged” and Congress stepping in?

    Fine, except:
    (a) the chances of any U.S. Congress–much less a Republican-dominated congress–telling a corporation what it can or can’t charge is pretty near zero (and probably should be),
    (b) the prime offenders (“offender,” really, and it begins with an Els) are European corporations.

    For that matter, PLoS is, fundamentally, an electronic operation, although people can pay for print versions. Unfortunately, PLoS’ costs appear to be pretty high, since they want $1,500 per article.

    And, at this point, it’s the price of electronic access to the commercially-controlled journals that’s driving libraries to the breaking point, if UC is an example.

    This is a complex situation with no easy answers; I believe that a whole bunch of initiatives (SPARC, BOAI, societies “taking back” their publications, maybe even selective legal-equivalents-to-boycotts) are the only way we’ll see much progress. I’ve been writing about this for years, and am further away from believing there’s a clear path than I was when I started!

    Reply
  3. Bibliofuture says:
    November 4, 2003 at 9:36 pm

    Own and control the means of production
    Content is king. Universities and libraries should work to own and control scholarly communication. University owned electronic journals managed by the University Press or Library is the way to go. Researchers should stop giving there research to journals that turn around and sell it for an extreme price. If the universities kept control of the intellectual property the money spent on journals could go back into the academy.

    Reply
  4. ChrisTheCat says:
    November 4, 2003 at 9:39 pm

    Re:My opinion’s worth less that the electrons…
    $1,500 per article isn’t that much. It’s a one-time fee to cover all expenses, including permanent archiving. It’s actually not much more than authors currently pay for publication in many scientific journals. Funding agencies routinely pay authors’ fees as part of grants, and PLoS waives fees for those who can’t afford to pay.

    Reply
  5. Walt says:
    November 4, 2003 at 9:53 pm

    Re:My opinion’s worth less that the electrons…
    The second and third sentences may be true (as long as PLoS pulls in grant money to waive fees), but fact is that $1,500 is three times the estimate most commonly used to push this form of publishing and the charges used by other ejournal publishers with similar business models.

    There are a number of reasons I find it difficult to support PLoS whole-heartedly (stunt legislation that confuses copyright and access issues, stunt ad campaigns, the whole stunt petition that showed commercial publishers that scientists really were bluffing); the higher-than-anyone-else charge is one.

    “Permanent archiving” is a wonderful assertion. Who’s backing it up? Initiatives such as LOCKSS could mean permanence; no single operation such as PLoS is really in a position to make that promise–and LOCKSS isn’t funded by those $1,500 fees.

    Sorry: I’d like to be more of a cheerleader, but it’s hard.

    Reply

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