July 2004 - LIS-Forum - ncsi.iisc.ernet.in

RE: [LIS-Forum] 25,000 titles (books) in Enginering field
by Mailing List Manager 22 Jul '04

22 Jul '04

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 13:38:53 +0630 (CCT) From: Yashwant G Kanade <kanade(a)ces.iisc.ernet.in> As far as discount is concerned, there are number of venders who are ready to give competetive discount based on publishers (the discount may range from 20% to 35%) as per my knowledge. Ask the vendors to give the list of required titles along with discount from various vendors. Regards Yashwant G Kanade CES Library, IISc

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Re: [LIS-Forum] Number of engineering Ph.D graduates from India
by Mailing List Manager 22 Jul '04

22 Jul '04

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 05:44:11 +0100 (BST) From: "[iso-8859-1] vijaya kumara" <vijayakumar71(a)yahoo.co.in> With reference to the Dr. Rajashekar's query on engineering PhD graduates from India, I would like advice to scan the ISTE News letter, they are providing list of PhD candidates just like in University news ISTE = Indian Society for Technical Educaiton Vijayakumar M, 080 - 28452324 Ext. 234 HOD - Library, library(a)mvjeducation.com MVJ College of Engineering, (ISO Certified Institute), Bangalore-560 067

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RE: [LIS-Forum] 25,000 titles (books) in Enginering field
by Mailing List Manager 22 Jul '04

22 Jul '04

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 19:12:09 +0530 From: Basudev Mohanty <basudev_mohanty(a)infosys.com> There is no reason at all to point out finger towards Vijayakumar's mail. What I think it is the decision of his Management only. Librarians should know the trick where is the present Business (as we are support/service department) & How to address it? I have seen in many cases that Librarians are not quite good enough to maintain Goodwill of their Management. I welcome Vijayakumar that he has taken the challenge and trying some innovative ways to full-fill his Management decision & if he can then he will be in goodwill of his Management. This is one of the major areas where Librarians should re-think as I have seen in the interview board for a library staff; Chief-Librarian(s) are ignored. On the other hands books can't be compared with vegetables. I do believe there is nothing like "Bad-Books". If there is a book published definitely there is some value addition to the students of concerned branch (may not be for the Researcher) in context to Vijayakumar's organization. In this context we should help-out Vijayakumar rather blaming him or his organization. I would like to suggest Vijayakumar that this is the best time to bargain for discount as he is going for block-procurement. Regards, Basudev Infosys, Bhubaneswar, Orissa -----Original Message----- From: lis-forum-bounces(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in [mailto:lis-forum-bounces@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in] On Behalf Of ++ Mukesh Anand ++ Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2004 1:53 PM To: Mailing List Manager; lis-forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] 25,000 titles (books) in Enginering field Although I am a bookseller myself, I fully agree with Mr. Subbiah Arunachalam about this practice of buying books collection for library just to meet the deadlines. Book buying and development of Library Collection is a systematic and long drawn out method which should be followed scrupulously to have only relevant publications on the shelves. Mukesh Anand mukesh(a)monitorinfo.com

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RE: [LIS-Forum] Number of engineering Ph.D graduates from India
by Mailing List Manager 22 Jul '04

22 Jul '04

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:54:58 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> Dr Rajashekar might wish to contact Dr Rajesh Shukla of NCAER, New Delhi, who is collecting data on degrees awarded, funds invested, and distribution by gender (often data from different sources are conflicting!). Arun

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RE: [LIS-Forum] RE: The Sabo Bill and Open Access
by Mailing List Manager 22 Jul '04

22 Jul '04

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 19:32:45 +0530 From: sathya <sathya(a)informindia.co.in> Hi Arun Our Feb 2004 editorial in U&I focuses on Martin Saboo's bill and its implications - "OAI and the Copyright Battle" http://www.informindia.co.in/u&i/Feb2004/u&i.htm A QUESTION(that haunts me), to Forum members. What should be the OAI's approach to "Indexes and database Aggregations"? For example, "Chemical Abstracts" and "the Journal of American Chemical Society" are different species of knowledge-animal, of entirely different value. Please note, a new separate Act is enacted recently by US Government to copyright protect databases, while Saboo's bill seeks to take-out federally funded (substantially) research publications out of copyright. Sathya -------------------------------------------------- N V Sathyanarayana Informatics www.informindia.co.in --------------------------------------------------

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UK committee backs open access
by Mailing List Manager 21 Jul '04

21 Jul '04

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 11:03:49 +0530 From: Madhuresh <madhuresh_s(a)aurigene.com> This news item, appeared in The Scientist (http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040720/04), may be of your interest. Madhuresh UK committee backs open access Politicians urge the government to insist on free archiving of scientific papers | <mailto:stephen@thescientisteurope.com> By Stephen Pincock LONDON-Britain should insist that government-funded researchers deposit a copy of their scientific papers in an electronic archive that can be accessed for free online, an influential committee of politicians said Tuesday (July 20). The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee <http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/science_and_technolog y_committee.cfm> has been investigating <http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040310/05/> science publishing most of this year. Its deliberations drew on an ongoing debate over "open access" to research, whose advocates say that the output from scientific research should be available free of charge. "We have recommended that the UK government fund the establishment of an interlinked network of institutional repositories on which all research articles originating in the UK should be deposited and can be read for free," the committee's report, released today, states. "In order to ensure that the repositories are well populated, we have recommended that research councils mandate their funded researchers to deposit copies of all their articles in this way." The committee suggests that the government should appoint a central body to oversee the implementation of repositories and help with their setting up. The UK government has to respond to the committee's report and is expected to do so within 2 months. A spokesperson for the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) told The Scientist that the council wants to encourage data to be available as readily as possible, while ensuring that the quality of scientific publications is maintained. "BBSRC is working with its sister research councils under the coordination of Research Councils UK <http://www.rcuk.ac.uk> (RCUK) to continue to develop our policy for addressing the needs of this rapidly evolving area," the spokesperson said. The members of the committee stop short giving their full support to open-access publishing, in which the author pays to publish instead of the reader paying a fee for access. The United Kingdom has too little experience of this model to know what effect it would have, the politicians said. Nevertheless, they recommended that the research councils make funds available so researchers can publish in such journals if they want. Jan Velterop, publisher of BioMedCentral, a for-profit publisher of open-access journals, called the report an important milestone in the open-access movement. (BioMedCentral is a partner with The Scientist.) "The overall report... is really a ringing endorsement of the whole concept of open access to scientific material," Velterop said. "It definitely is a major development. I even think that with hindsight, we may look back on this as a turning point." Peter Suber, an open-access <http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040427/05/> advocate at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., said he was delighted that the report "doesn't merely endorse open access, but calls for a national commitment to open access-encompassing all UK higher education institutions, the British Library, the research councils, the government funding agencies, and government policymakers."=20 "The report recommends many steps, but properly focuses on the one step that will do the most good: asking government funding agencies to put an open-access condition on research grants and requiring grantees to deposit the full-text articles based on funded research in open-access repositories," Suber told The Scientist. Most scientific research is currently published in journals that charge for access, although many allow their authors to self-archive papers. In June, Elsevier <http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authored_newsitem.cws_home/companynews 05_00145> , one of the biggest science publishers, made this move.=20 But this week, Arie Jongejan, chief executive officer of Science and Technology for Elsevier, said some of the concerns expressed in the report about government policy were overstated. "We are doubtful that the government will necessarily agree to recommendations made by the report," he said. The committee also urged the United Kingdom to take an international role as a proponent for change in scientific publishing. In response, Graham Taylor, director of Academic Publishing at the Publishers Association, said the UK industry was already a center of excellence for scientific publishing. "We look forward to engaging with government and its agencies on the issues that the committee has raised in order to ensure an efficient and sustainable strategy for the future," he said. Just last week, the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee also recommended that the National Institutes for Health (NIH) make research it funds freely available. In a report, the committee called on NIH to offer access to authors' final manuscripts and supplemental materials via <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/> PubMed Central 6 months after publication. If the grantee used NIH funds to pay any publication charges, free access would be immediate. Taken together, these political recommendations suggest an international consensus is growing in support of open access, said Michael B. Eisen, cofounder of open-access publisher Public Library of Science.=20 "The report from the House of Commons committee and the bill passed by the US House committee are a call to action. Both have made clear the need for better access to publicly funded scientific works, and both have offered concrete mechanisms for achieving it," Eisen said in a statement. Links for this article Science and Technology Committee http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/science_and_t <http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/science_and_technolog y_committee.cfm> echnology_committee.cfm=20 C. Brahic, "UK hears open access evidence," The Scientist, March 10, 2004. http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040310/05/=20 Research Councils UK http://www.rcuk.ac.uk=20 A. McCook, "Open-access journals rank well," The Scientist, April 27, 2004. http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040427/05/=20 "Elsevier further liberalizes copyright for authors," Elsevier company news, June 3, 2004. http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authored_newsitem.cws_home/com <http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authored_newsitem.cws_home/companynews 05_00145> panynews05_00145=20 PubMed Central http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/=20 =20 Madhuresh Singhal Aurigene Discovery Technologies Limited, Electronic City, phase II, Hosur Road, Bangalore 560100 Phone 28521314-16 Ext.- 422 Mobile 98861 82822 E-mail: madhureshsinghal(a)yahoo.com=20 http://nettalk2.tripod.com/=20

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Directorate of Library Services, Govt. of WB
by Mailing List Manager 21 Jul '04

21 Jul '04

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 10:55:13 +0530 From: Madhuresh <madhuresh_s(a)aurigene.com> Dear All, NIC has recently hosted one website of Directorate of Library Services, Govt. of West Bengal, which can be accessed at http://banglargranthagar.nic.in/ The website provides the information about the Rare Books, Old Libraries, Staff Pattern, Library Distribution, Budget Allocation, Library Services and Activities, List of Public and aided libraries etc. in West Bengal. This could be a useful source. It would be wonderful if such websites can be hosted for all states in India. Madhuresh Singhal Aurigene Discovery Technologies Limited, Electronic City, phase II, Hosur Road, Bangalore 560100 Phone 28521314-16 Ext.- 422 Mobile 98861 82822 E-mail: madhureshsinghal(a)yahoo.com=20 http://nettalk2.tripod.com/=20

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International CALIBER-2005: Call for Papers
by JK Vijayakumar 21 Jul '04

21 Jul '04

Dear Collegues, Website for International CALIBER-2005 is available at http://web.inflibnet.ac.in/caliber2005/inflibnet.jsp CALIBER (Convention on Automation of Libraries in Education and Research Institutions) is an international convention, organized every year by INFLIBNET Centre in different parts of India in collaboration with different universities. This is the premier convention in India which provides a unique forum to the library and information professionals, teachers, IT professionals, consultants and users involved in automation and networking of libraries as well as information providers to come together and interact on the subjects of mutual interest. The twelfth CALIBER in the series, for the year 2005, has been themed as "Multilingual Computing and Information Management in Digital Networked Environment" and will be hosted by Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi during February 2-4, 2005. The official language of the convention will be English. Convention Highlights Diverse topics and formats The convention features invited talks and contributed papers that provide coverage of standards, best practices, and recent advances in the area of multilingual computing and digital information management. Emphasis on current needs Multilingual computing and localization of the library resources around the world and its management will be addressed in several sessions as well as in the invited talks from the professionals devoted to the concerned areas. Exhibitions showcase and commercial presentations A forum that highlights the latest advances in language services, tools and technology in addition to management of the resources. CALL FOR PAPERS International CALIBER 2005 invites contributed papers and case studies on various aspects of the conference theme Multilingual Computing and Information Management in Digital Networked Environment and listed below sub-themes of the conference: Multilingual Computing and Natural Language Processing Multilingual Computing- Encoding issues, Scripts, Fonts. Character recognition and other challenges, Natural Language Processing, Multilingual Indexing Tool, Multilingual and Multimedia Access Content Management and Information Management Content Structuring and XML- Web Cataloguing, Metadata, Dublin Core, EAD, TEI, XML, Crosswalk, Automatic Classification, Document Clustering, Methodologies, Techniques, Indexing, Retrieval, Content Management, Multimedia Digital Information Processing and Interoperability Archiving, Digitization, Preservation, Information Retrieval, Digital Library Architecture, System Scalability, Systems Design, Distributed solutions, WebServices and Interoperability - Agents related to digital Information, Crossdomain searching, Browsing, Metasearch, OpenURL Framework OAI-PMH. Digital Libraries and Services Digital Library Development Issues, Digital Library Services, Digital Library and E-learning, Digital Library Applications. Subject Gateways, Library Portals, Digital Library Consortia, Wide area and high-speed Networks. Papers typed in MS-Word can be sent as attachment to INFLIBNET directly through E-Mail or in a floppy by post. The length of the paper should normally be within 5000 words. Papers should contain full name and affiliations with e-mail of author(s), an abstract, author biography and references properly cited in the text of article. The paper should neither be published anywhere nor should have been kept under consideration for publication elsewhere and the author should agree to transfer the copyright to the conference organisers. A passport size photograph(s) of author(s) has to be submitted with the paper. Detailed Guidelines and Editorial policy for CALIBER 2005 are available in the conference website http://web.inflibnet.ac.in/caliber2005/callforpapers.jsp Important dates Receipt of Full Papers: November 30, 2004 Intimation to Authors: December 15, 2004 Last Date for Registration: January 7, 2005 Convention Dates: February 2-4, 2005 Contacts For Paper Submission Dr. T.A.V. Murthy Editor-in-Chief Director INFLIBNET Centre (An IUC of UGC) Gujarat University Campus PB 4116, Navrangpura Ahmedabad - 380 009, (Gujarat) India Phone: +91-79-26304695/8528/5971/0002 Fax: +91-79-26300990/26307816 E-Mail: tav(a)inflibnet.ac.in or caliber2005(a)inflibnet.ac.in Registration and Accomodation Dr. (Mrs.) M.D. Baby Organizing Secretary, CALIBER-2005 Librarian Cochin University of Science & Technology, Cochin University P.O. Kochi - 682 022, (Kerala) India Phone: +91-484-2577595 E-mail: caliber2005(a)cusat.ac.in or ul(a)cusat.ac.in Queries Can Also be Sent to Mr. S.M. Salgar Chairman, Caliber-2005, Scientist -G, INFLIBNET Centre (An IUC of UGC) Gujarat University Campus PB 4116, Navrangpura Ahmedabad - 380 009, (Gujarat) India Phone: +91-79-26304695/8528/5971/0002 Fax: +91-79-26300990/26307816 E-Mail: salgar(a)inflibnet.ac.in For more details on International CALIBER-2005 visit http://web.inflibnet.ac.in/caliber2005/inflibnet.jsp __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

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House of Commons S&T Committee Press Release on OA
by Mailing List Manager 21 Jul '04

21 Jul '04

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 16:05:45 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> Friends: Here is the press release from the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee on the subject "SCIENTIF PUBLICATIONS: FREE FOR ALL? Prof. Balaram might wish to comment editorially in Current Science. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE HOUSE OF COMMONS PRESS NOTICE Committee Office, House of Commons, No. 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA Tel. Nos. 020 7219 2793-2794 (Fax. No. - 0896) email: scitechcom(a)parliament.uk No. 63 - Session 2003-20 20 July 2004 PUBLICATION OF REPORT SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS: FREE FOR ALL? The Science and Technology Committee today publishes its Tenth Report of Session 2003-04, Scientific Publications: Free for all? (HC 399-I). The Committee concludes that the current model for scientific publishing is unsatisfactory. An increase in the volume of research output, rising prices and static library budgets mean that libraries are struggling to purchase subscriptions to all the scientific journals needed by their users. The Report recommends that all UK higher education institutions establish institutional repositories on which their published output can be stored and from which it can be read, free of charge, online. It also recommends that Research Councils and other Government funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of all of their articles in this way. The Committee concludes that the creation of institutional repositories is an important first step towards a more radical change in the way that scientific papers are published. Early indications suggest that the author-pays publishing model could be viable and the Committee remains unconvinced by many of the arguments mounted against it. Nonetheless, this Report concludes that further experimentation is necessary, particularly to establish the impact that a change of publishing models would have on learned societies and in respect of the "free rider" problem. In order to encourage such experimentation the Report recommends that the Research Councils each establish a fund to which their funded researchers can apply should they wish to pay to publish. The Report criticises the UK Government for failing to respond to issues surrounding scientific publications in a coherent manner. The Committee is not convinced that it would be ready to deal with any changes to the publishing model and calls for the formulation of a strategy as a matter of urgency. The preservation of digital material is an expensive process that poses a significant technical challenge. The Report recommends that the British Library receives sufficient funding to enable it to carry out this work. Government needs to start work on new regulations for the legal deposit of non-print publications immediately. The market for scientific publications is international. The UK cannot act alone. For this reason the Committee recommends that the UK Government act as a proponent for change on the international stage and lead by example. This will ultimately benefit researchers across the globe. Chairman of the Committee, Dr Ian Gibson, said "Publishers are feathering their nests with big profits whilst scientific journals are becoming less and less affordable. Government has its head in the sand: it's about time that it landed in the in-tray of the Ministers in question. Instead of bashing all the alternatives, commercial publishers should be asked to justify the current publishing process they use. The Open Access movement needs to iron out the teething problems with the author-pays model. It's public money that oils the cogs of the publishing machine and we want to make sure that it's well spent." Hard copies of the Report can be obtained from TSO outlets and from the Parliamentary Bookshop, 12 Bridge Street, Parliament Square, London SW1A 2JX (020 7219 3890) by quoting HC 399-I. The text of the Report will also be available via the Committee=s internet homepage: www.parliament.uk/commons/selcom/s&thome.htm <http://mail.yahoo.com/config/login?/www.parliament.uk/commons/selcom/s%26th ome.htm> Further information on the work of the Committee can be obtained from Committee staff on 020 7219 2793/4. Previous press notices and publications are available on our website. Notes for Editors 1. Under the terms of Standing Order No. 152 the Committee is empowered to examine the "expenditure, policy and administration of the Office of Science and Technology and its associated public bodies". The Committee was appointed on 12 November 2001. 2. The Committee's inquiry was announced on 10 December 2003 in Press Notice 3 of Session 2003-04. 3. The Committee took evidence from Blackwell Publishing, John Wiley & Sons, Nature Publishing Group and Reed Elsevier on 1 March 2004; Oxford University Press, the Institute of Physics Publishing, the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, BioMed Central, Public Library of Science and Axiope on 8 March 2004; the British Library, the Joint Information Systems Committee, Cambridge University Library, the University of Hertfordshire and a panel of academics on 21 April 2004; and the Department of Trade and Industry/the Office of Science and Technology, the Higher Education Funding Council for England and Research Councils UK on 5 May 2004.

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RE: The Sabo Bill and Open Access
by Mailing List Manager 21 Jul '04

21 Jul '04

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 14:54:27 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> Friends: Here is an interview with Robert Terry, Senior Policy Advisor at the Wellcome Trust, UK. It appeared in the latest issue of Open Access Now, a part of The Scientist. I thought that this should be read widely in India. Regards. Arun ------------------ http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/archive/?page=features&issue=18 Wellcome support for Open Access Funding bodies play a major role in the Open Access debate as they provide the money that pays for scientific research. Funders have the right to influence how their money is spent and how research results are disseminated. The Wellcome Trust is the UK's leading biomedical charity, spending over �400 million (over US$700 million) each year on research. Robert Terry, Senior Policy Advisor at the Wellcome Trust, talked to Open Access Now about why the Trust supports Open Access. The Wellcome Trust spends a lot of money supporting biomedical research in the UK and around the globe. Over the next five years the Trust expects to fund top-quality research to the tune of �2 billion (around US$3.6 billion). It seems only reasonable that the Trust be interested in how scientific findings are published and shared. To guide its decision-making the Trust commissioned two studies of the economics of scientific publishing. The results were so compelling that the Trust issued a position statement (see Open Access Now, November 3, 2003 <http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/news/?issue=8>) expressing unequivocal support for Open Access models. "The Wellcome Trust supports open and unrestricted access to the published output of research, including the open access model, as a fundamental part of its charitable mission and a public benefit to be encouraged wherever possible," said the statement. Robert Terry is the Senior Policy Advisor in the Strategic Planning and Policy Unit of the Wellcome Trust. "The unit is responsible for horizon scanning, policy and strategy on behalf of the Trust," explains Terry. As well as directly funding researchers, the Trust runs two libraries; one is a history of medicine library and the other is an information service for the general public. "The advisory committee of these libraries first raised the question of Open Access a few years ago. I led a small in-house group that began to research the issue. It became clear that one of the things that we didn't understand (and we wondered whether other people understood or not) was the real economics of the market." "In fact researchers on the whole are not directly paying for anything. There are really very few people in the biomedical research area that are paying for their own research. It's actually funders like ourselves and the research councils who are paying," Terry reminds us. "The funding bodies are the last players to get involved in Open Access. There needs to be a really significant step in raising consciousness among the funders, to see whether or not we can get things to change." The economics of publishing The Trust commissioned SQW, an economic and management consultancy company, to investigate the scientific publishing sector. In September 2003, the Trust published the results in a report entitled 'An Economic Analysis of Scientific Research Publishing <http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/1/awtpubrepeas.html>'. Terry agrees that many people had begun to examine these issues, but the report provided an in-depth insight into how the economics of the scientific publishing industry influence the way in which scientific knowledge is disseminated. "I think that it was perhaps the first time that it had been pulled together in quite that way," says Terry. "For someone coming to this topic for the first time it pulls everything together in a fairly straightforward way. The report was certainly highly influential in the Trust. It encouraged the Trust to come out and say that we now believe in Open Access publication." "When you look at it from an economic point of view it is clear that you have a failing market," explains Terry. "Researchers give away their research data free to journals that then retain copyright. Then researchers and the users of that information obtain the information via libraries. So it is libraries that are paying the cost of re-accessing that information once it has been peer-reviewed and published. What we end up with is a very dysfunctional market," he notes. "The producers and the consumers are completely separated from any market forces, hence subscriptions can rise year on year and the people who are demanding the product are more or less oblivious. When you review the last ten years you come to fairly shocking figures of rises of 200% in journal subscription prices and the realization that certain commercial publishers are making large profits. And that is money that is leaving the system. It's going to shareholders or to learned societies. As a funder, we have to start thinking about how money that we are pumping into the system is leaving the system for a completely different purpose from our mission. That's really what started to drive us. So we began to consider what the alternatives are and how this could be organized in a much better way." ------------------------ "As a funder, we have to start thinking about how money that we are pumping into the system is leaving the system for a completely different purpose from our mission." Robert Terry ------------------------ "We published our statement to say that we think that the system is not working well. It became clear to us that the dissemination of research is actually a research cost and that by delegating that activity to others (journals and their publishers) we have actually got locked into a very inefficient system. We felt that there must be better ways to share information and make the Internet as efficient as possible in the dissemination of research and increasing knowledge." Open Access saves money The Wellcome Trust committed itself to paying the costs of Open Access publishing and encouraging researchers to deposit their work in open archives. But Terry's group wanted to have a better understanding of the true costs involved in Open Access publishing and the alternative publishing models, so they commissioned a second study by SQW. "The second study basically filled in another gap in the evidence base," recalls Terry. "People were questioning whether authors-pays models (though in reality they are 'funder-pays' models) are efficient, economical and commercially viable. They expressed concern about the sustainability of these models. That's why we commissioned the second report which is about the actual costs involved in peer-reviewing research papers, managing manuscripts and dissemination on the Internet." The second Wellcome report 'Costs and Business Models in Scientific Research Publishing <http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/1/awtpubrepcos.html>' was published in April 2004. "I think that it was really interesting because we tried as much as possible to talk to commercial publishers, learned society publishers and Open Access publishers," says Terry. The report provides evidence that an author-pays model offers a viable alternative to subscription journals. The Trust concluded that "Open Access publishing should be able to deliver high-quality, peer-reviewed research at a cost that is significantly less than the traditional model while bringing with it a number of additional benefits." The report concluded that savings of up to 30% might be achieved. The research shows that publishing a research article in the traditional way costs between �800 and �1,500 (between US$1440 and US$2700). Under Open Access the cost is about 70% of that, at �550 to �1,100. "I feel fairly confident with what we have come up with," says Terry. "Nobody has actually disputed the figures; they might disagree with the conclusions, but they haven't disputed the figures. The savings could even be more, because the costs that we identified were the 'first-copy' costs." "If we move to an Open Access system it allows for interesting other models to start being used. For example, you might think about introducing a submission fee to cover the costs of peer review. That would suddenly reduce the publication costs down to around US$500-600 by having a very small submission charge." The idea is that a submission charge would be paid by authors of all articles that are peer-reviewed, rather than the situation at present where the only charges that are paid are from authors whose work is eventually published - so they, in effect subsidize the cost of rejecting articles. Terry reminds us that currently many journals have page charges and extra charges for color figures. "It seems to have been forgotten, or at least it is never mentioned by the commercial publishers, that authors have been paying page charges for years and these are often much higher figures than are talked about for Open Access." The need for increased advocacy "The rationale for doing these two studies was to move the whole debate away from the economic issues," says Terry. "In a sense, the economics don't matter in that it should be viable to move towards another system - and that system should be more efficient and less expensive. And on top of all that you get all the fantastic benefits that Open Access should allow: far wider dissemination, higher impact in terms of people reading and citing your work, and reducing the barriers to research. These barriers and publisher restrictions are a real impediment to science and the way that science needs to be done. The reports certainly got a lot of media attention. They brought the issue right into the broadsheets and the financial newspapers. So, I think that they helped to get people seriously engaged in the debate and thinking about viable alternative models." Terry dismisses many of the myths being voiced by the opponents of Open Access. "Some argue that if the system isn't broken don't fix it: we would argue that the system is broken," says Terry. "Another way to look at it is that it's an engine running on two cylinders as opposed to six - it still gets you along the road, but is it really working efficiently or taking you to the all places that you want to go. You have to ask yourself the question - what sort of money is leaving the system to support that inefficiency." Terry suggests that learned societies have to think harder about their goals. "Is making a surplus from the dissemination of research still a justified activity when it might actually be an impediment to research itself? I think that some of the learned societies have to start thinking about what their purpose is and who they serve." ---------------- "Another way to look at it is that it's an engine running on two cylinders as opposed to six: it still gets you along the road, but is it really working efficiently or taking you to the all places that you want to go?" Robert Terry --------------- "There's a lot of talk about initiatives such as HINARI, but researchers in developing countries are still paying higher subscription fees than their American counterparts," says Terry. (HINARI is an initiative to provide free, or low-cost, access to major biomedical journals to public institutions in developing countries; see Open Access Now 19 January 2004 <http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/www/?issue=12>.) "While Open Access won't immediately make life any easier, because of the digital divide, I think that in time it will help the system because true Open Access puts no restrictions on reproduction. Someone can download various papers, or even a whole journal if they want to, print it up and distribute if for no charge or for a small distribution charge. There are all sorts of different models that could be used. Open Access systems offer a true market that will allow all sorts of different experiments to come and go, and fail or succeed, and hopefully lead to greater efficiency in the system." "Stimulating the debate was one of the first things we wanted to do and I think we can confidently say that we have done that," remarks Terry. The Trust is eagerly awaiting the report of the UK House of Commons Committee Inquiry <http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/inquiry/>. "I would like to think that the weight of arguments is so conclusive - certainly they have been to us - that the Committee will make certain recommendations to the government about Open Access being better for public money. Over 90% of the research that goes on in the universities in this country is funded either from government or from the charity sector. But if you are just an ordinary member of the public you cannot read it, unless you pay for it. I think that the government will find it difficult to come down in favor of one business model or another. But they could certainly be looking at how best to use what's available to disseminate publicly funded research." Terry says that the Trust is unlikely to insist that its fundees publish exclusively in Open Access journals - at least at this stage. "Whist I can see the strong arguments for that, one of the things that we are reluctant to do is to force researchers down a path too early and create unnecessary antagonism. If Open Access delivers as many benefits as we think it should, then researchers should be choosing it willingly. I think we need more advocacy work with our own stakeholders. We are looking at how to communicate to the people who take our grants about the benefits of Open Access. Ultimately that's where the argument has to be won. Researchers themselves must be convinced that this is in their best interests." Terry feels that repositories are also an effective way to disseminate science. While the Trust might consider building its own repository, Terry is hoping that the House of Commons Committee may recommend the creation of a national repository for all UK research. "That could be done in all sorts of ways. It could be something that was immediate, that anyone who had received public money would have to place their papers there, or it could be after three months or after six months or whatever. There are all sorts of steps that could be taken. That would be a positive step forward and we would be supportive of such a national open archive." The Wellcome Trust has provided a leading example for other funding bodies to follow. The Trust is motivated by its role in funding top quality research and is committed to making sure that the results of that research can be read by everyone. The Trust has emphasized that it considers the costs of research dissemination to be part of the costs of research. "Our analysis suggests that we are really only looking at 1-2% of standard research costs," says Terry. "I think that's a small price to pay for the increase in impact, citations, and so on. It might mean that we fund less research. But a 1-2% decrease in volume may not be a bad thing. What we are interested in is high quality research that has a real impact, not the numbers of papers. If one of our �5 million grants produces only one paper but that paper is really hugely significant then I think that we would be happy. And we would want it to be completely open and freely accessible." <http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/publications>

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