Response to STM response to US Scholarly Publishing Roundtable

This is a response to the Science, Technology and Medicine (STM) responds to US Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Report and Recommendations.

STM is overstating their contributions to scholarly publishing and overlooking the much greater contributions of scholars themselves, as the unpaid writers and peer reviewers.

For example, the STM report says: "Government research grants currently cover the cost of the research only. Government research grants do not cover the costs of publication."

What is missing?

• the scholars who write the research articles and do the peer review, for free
• the U.S. National Institutes of Health funding which goes to page charges for subscription journals - to the tune of $30 million, enough to pay for full OA with online open access
  
• a portion of government research grants goes to universities for overhead - including library subscriptions - which are about 70% of STM revenue, (which is more than enough to pay for full global OA at today's rates with over 60% savings for libraries)

STM "welcomes the consultation and collaboration that has occurred with our industry". Comment: my perspective is that public policy consultation should involve the public, as the OSTP consultation has - not a secret group of individuals meeting behind closed doors.

STM, understandably, wants financial compensation if the policy requires access to the final Version of Record. From my perspective, this is unnecessary, and not necessarily desirable, as there are advantages to having multiple versions, such as for preservation purposes (one version might survive and another not), and access purposes (e.g., the author's own version may be more useful for the print disabled).