If the Association of American Publishers is trying to shake off a reputation of disinformation - they'll have to try harder.
In a letter to the CHINFO discussion list, as reported on Open Access News, a statement from the AAP scholarly publishing division says:
Private sector non-profit and commercial publishers serve researchers and scientists by managing and funding the peer review process...
This is nonsense! Publishers do not fund the peer review process. First, peer review is not funded at all, but rather done on a voluntary basis.
Second, profitable publishers (there are both commercial and not-for-profit publishers who fit this description) do not fund the coordination of peer review; rather, they reap profits from the service they provide. In a financial sense, they do not give; they take.
If saying that one is funding a service, when the reality is that one is reaping profits from the service, is not disinformation - what is?
This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Stop fighting the inevitable - and free funds for OA!
Kudos to Nature for reporting that the American Association of Publishers have hired a media "pit bull" to coordinate anti-open access messages, at a fee of $300,000 - $500,000. For an excerpt and thoughtful comments, see Open Access News.
Leaving aside the questionable ethics of this tactic, and the sheer folly of attempting to consolidate one's position as the guardian of quality and integrity in academic communications through a campaign of deliberate misinterpretation - what might the publishing industry accomplish simply by redirecting funds from fighting open access - to implementing open access.
By my reckoning, this one expenditure alone would be sufficient for hosting and support services for a year for 785 open access journals. If Elsevier were to redirect funds from their U.S. lobbying efforts alone to open access publishing, this would be enough for hosting and support for over 3,000 open access journals - more than Elsevier currently publishes! Hosting and support is not the only expense in open access publishing, of course - but then, the U.S. is not the only country where Elsevier is involved in lobbying...
Calculations:
Let's assume the mid-point of this one expenditure by the AAP - $400,000 U.S. for the media pitbull. This is enough to purchase hosting and support services, using Open Journal Systems , for 785 journals! [disclosure: I work for SFU Library, one of the partners in the PKP project which produces OJS]. (The figure of 785 journals is based on SFU Library's quoted $600 Cdn per journal for more than 10 titles, converted to $509 U.S.). Please note that Open Journal Systems (OJS) is free, open source software; this fee reflects cost-recovery for hosting and support.
This particular expenditure on the part of AAP may sound like a substantial sum - but is it really, or is it only a drop in the bucket when it comes to spending on anti-open access lobbying?
As reported on Open Access News a year ago, Elsevier spent $12.5 million on lobbying in the US since 1998, the fourth largest amount of any UK company. Assuming an 8-year time period for the expenditure of $12.5 million, this is a sum of more than $1.5 million spent annually on lobbying - in the U.S. alone.
If Elsevier were to redirect funds from U.S. lobbying to journal support - this would be enough to cover 3,070 journals using OJS per year! Currently, Elsevier only publishes about 2,000 journals. What might they do with the surplus? What might be accomplished through re-directed lobbying funds not only from the U.S., but from other countries, too?
This post is part of the Transitioning to Open Access Series
If you'd like to know more about Open Journal Systems and the Public Knowledge Project, join us in Vancouver next summer for the First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference. [Disclosure: I am an on the PKP conference planning committee].
This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.
Leaving aside the questionable ethics of this tactic, and the sheer folly of attempting to consolidate one's position as the guardian of quality and integrity in academic communications through a campaign of deliberate misinterpretation - what might the publishing industry accomplish simply by redirecting funds from fighting open access - to implementing open access.
By my reckoning, this one expenditure alone would be sufficient for hosting and support services for a year for 785 open access journals. If Elsevier were to redirect funds from their U.S. lobbying efforts alone to open access publishing, this would be enough for hosting and support for over 3,000 open access journals - more than Elsevier currently publishes! Hosting and support is not the only expense in open access publishing, of course - but then, the U.S. is not the only country where Elsevier is involved in lobbying...
Calculations:
Let's assume the mid-point of this one expenditure by the AAP - $400,000 U.S. for the media pitbull. This is enough to purchase hosting and support services, using Open Journal Systems , for 785 journals! [disclosure: I work for SFU Library, one of the partners in the PKP project which produces OJS]. (The figure of 785 journals is based on SFU Library's quoted $600 Cdn per journal for more than 10 titles, converted to $509 U.S.). Please note that Open Journal Systems (OJS) is free, open source software; this fee reflects cost-recovery for hosting and support.
This particular expenditure on the part of AAP may sound like a substantial sum - but is it really, or is it only a drop in the bucket when it comes to spending on anti-open access lobbying?
As reported on Open Access News a year ago, Elsevier spent $12.5 million on lobbying in the US since 1998, the fourth largest amount of any UK company. Assuming an 8-year time period for the expenditure of $12.5 million, this is a sum of more than $1.5 million spent annually on lobbying - in the U.S. alone.
If Elsevier were to redirect funds from U.S. lobbying to journal support - this would be enough to cover 3,070 journals using OJS per year! Currently, Elsevier only publishes about 2,000 journals. What might they do with the surplus? What might be accomplished through re-directed lobbying funds not only from the U.S., but from other countries, too?
This post is part of the Transitioning to Open Access Series
If you'd like to know more about Open Journal Systems and the Public Knowledge Project, join us in Vancouver next summer for the First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference. [Disclosure: I am an on the PKP conference planning committee].
This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.
OAIster reaches 10 million records
Today, OAIster, a search tool for open access archives, reached 10 million records! This is an important milestone for open access - and a noteworthy addition to the ongoing story of The Dramatic Growth of Open Access!
Congratulations, OAIster!
This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.
Congratulations, OAIster!
This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL): Canadian Leader in Open Access
Synopsis
Recently, the CARL/ABRC (Canadian Association of Research Libraries / Association des bibliothèques de recherche du Canada)decided to freely, and immediately, release their E-Lert / Cyberavis. This is good news; but, not too surprising, because CARL/ABRC is yet another of Canada's early leaders in the open access movement.
It was less than a month after the announcement of the world's first defining moment in open access, the Budapest Open Access Initiative, when CARL/ABRC issued a report endorsing the Initiative, and less than a year before CARL/ABRC held a conference to discuss the results of their own open access pilot, the CARL Institutional Repository project.
CARL/ABRC was among the first to endorse the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), and the organizations still have a close and ongoing relationship.
Current CARL/ABRC open access leadership is shown on the advocacy front, as with their recent response to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Draft Policy on Access to Research Outputs, and implementation, in the ongoing (and growing) CARL Institutional Repositories Project, and the Allouette Canada Open Digitization Initiative.
Some of the principles of CARL/ABRC's Hamilton Principles of 1995, especially the right of all individuals to have access to all expressions of knowledge, creativity and intellectual activity, and the fundamental role of academic research libraries in facilitating and enhancing the process of scholarly communication, were, in my opinion, more than prescient for their time, as these principles have much to offer to libraries of today and tomorrow to guide the way to open access.
Detail
The first post in this series celebrated Canada's pioneering role in open access. The world's first defining moment of the open access movement, the December 2001 Budapest Open Access Initiative, was a small meeting of 16 people, pioneers in the open access movement. 3 of these 16 are Canadian academics - a remarkable percentage, for a country our size: Jean-Claude Guédon, Leslie Chan, and Stevan Harnad.
While much of the world, even in academia, is only recently beginning to learn about open access, the Canadian academic library wasted no time at all in adopting a leadership position on open access.
The launch of the Budapest Open Access Initiative was announced on February 14, 2002, in the Free Online Scholarship (FOS) Newsletter, 8/8/02, by Peter Suber (another of the participants at Budapest, naturally, and drafter of the Initiative).
In March 2002, CARL/ABRC (Canadian Association of Research Libraries / Association des bibliothèques de recherche du Canada) issued a report endorsing the Budapest Open Archives Initiative.
CARL's support for open access has long been more than philosophical. In November 2002, CARL/ABRC held a conference on the lessons learned from its ongoing project to launch and monitor archives at seven Canadian universities, now the CARL Institutional Repositories Project, according to Peter Suber's FOS Newsletter. The CARL/ABRC institutional repositories can be viewed and searched using the CARL Metadata Harvester.
If CARL/ABRC was poised to move early into action on open access, it may be because a solid philosophical foundation for CARL/ABRC to move to a leadership position in scholarly communications was developed in the 1990's, as illustrated by the Hamilton principles, last revised in June 1995, which include the following:
CARL/ABRC's early, and enduring, leadership is demonstrated by the association's long and close relationship with the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC). CARL was one of the earliest endorsers of SPARC, and is currently an affiliate member. CARL Directors are well represented on the SPARC Steering Committee. A more recent example of strong CARL/ABRC and SPARC cooperation is when CARL and SPARC jointly "commend the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for the strength and timeliness of its Draft Policy on Access to Research Outputs".
CARL/ABRC's recent leadership in open access advocacy is exemplified by the CARL Response to the CIHR Draft Policy on Access to Research Outputs, and the corresponding briefing paper, both of which can be downloaded from the CARL/ABRC's What's New page.
Another noteworthy CARL/ABRC initiative is the Allouette Canada Open Digitization Initiative.
This post might seem a bit long - however, this is only scratching the surface, just briefly mentioning the major initiatives of the organization per se, and does not yet begin to discuss the leaders themselves - the people behind the CARL open access leadership, Executive Director Tim Mark, staff open access specialist Kathleen Shearer, and the many CARL Library Directors who are open access leaders themselves.
This post is a part of the Canadian Leadership in the Open Access series.
This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.
Recently, the CARL/ABRC (Canadian Association of Research Libraries / Association des bibliothèques de recherche du Canada)decided to freely, and immediately, release their E-Lert / Cyberavis. This is good news; but, not too surprising, because CARL/ABRC is yet another of Canada's early leaders in the open access movement.
It was less than a month after the announcement of the world's first defining moment in open access, the Budapest Open Access Initiative, when CARL/ABRC issued a report endorsing the Initiative, and less than a year before CARL/ABRC held a conference to discuss the results of their own open access pilot, the CARL Institutional Repository project.
CARL/ABRC was among the first to endorse the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), and the organizations still have a close and ongoing relationship.
Current CARL/ABRC open access leadership is shown on the advocacy front, as with their recent response to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Draft Policy on Access to Research Outputs, and implementation, in the ongoing (and growing) CARL Institutional Repositories Project, and the Allouette Canada Open Digitization Initiative.
Some of the principles of CARL/ABRC's Hamilton Principles of 1995, especially the right of all individuals to have access to all expressions of knowledge, creativity and intellectual activity, and the fundamental role of academic research libraries in facilitating and enhancing the process of scholarly communication, were, in my opinion, more than prescient for their time, as these principles have much to offer to libraries of today and tomorrow to guide the way to open access.
Detail
The first post in this series celebrated Canada's pioneering role in open access. The world's first defining moment of the open access movement, the December 2001 Budapest Open Access Initiative, was a small meeting of 16 people, pioneers in the open access movement. 3 of these 16 are Canadian academics - a remarkable percentage, for a country our size: Jean-Claude Guédon, Leslie Chan, and Stevan Harnad.
While much of the world, even in academia, is only recently beginning to learn about open access, the Canadian academic library wasted no time at all in adopting a leadership position on open access.
The launch of the Budapest Open Access Initiative was announced on February 14, 2002, in the Free Online Scholarship (FOS) Newsletter, 8/8/02, by Peter Suber (another of the participants at Budapest, naturally, and drafter of the Initiative).
In March 2002, CARL/ABRC (Canadian Association of Research Libraries / Association des bibliothèques de recherche du Canada) issued a report endorsing the Budapest Open Archives Initiative.
CARL's support for open access has long been more than philosophical. In November 2002, CARL/ABRC held a conference on the lessons learned from its ongoing project to launch and monitor archives at seven Canadian universities, now the CARL Institutional Repositories Project, according to Peter Suber's FOS Newsletter. The CARL/ABRC institutional repositories can be viewed and searched using the CARL Metadata Harvester.
If CARL/ABRC was poised to move early into action on open access, it may be because a solid philosophical foundation for CARL/ABRC to move to a leadership position in scholarly communications was developed in the 1990's, as illustrated by the Hamilton principles, last revised in June 1995, which include the following:
Access to Information
The Association supports and promotes the right of all individuals to have access to all expressions of knowledge, creativity and intellectual activity.
Scholarly Communication
The Association has a fundamental role in facilitating and enhancing the process of scholarly communication. (emphasis added)
CARL/ABRC's early, and enduring, leadership is demonstrated by the association's long and close relationship with the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC). CARL was one of the earliest endorsers of SPARC, and is currently an affiliate member. CARL Directors are well represented on the SPARC Steering Committee. A more recent example of strong CARL/ABRC and SPARC cooperation is when CARL and SPARC jointly "commend the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for the strength and timeliness of its Draft Policy on Access to Research Outputs".
CARL/ABRC's recent leadership in open access advocacy is exemplified by the CARL Response to the CIHR Draft Policy on Access to Research Outputs, and the corresponding briefing paper, both of which can be downloaded from the CARL/ABRC's What's New page.
Another noteworthy CARL/ABRC initiative is the Allouette Canada Open Digitization Initiative.
This post might seem a bit long - however, this is only scratching the surface, just briefly mentioning the major initiatives of the organization per se, and does not yet begin to discuss the leaders themselves - the people behind the CARL open access leadership, Executive Director Tim Mark, staff open access specialist Kathleen Shearer, and the many CARL Library Directors who are open access leaders themselves.
This post is a part of the Canadian Leadership in the Open Access series.
This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.
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