Friends:
Dr Kanikaram Satyanarayana asks why should the governments in India and
Brazil subsidize the dissemination of research (of learned societies
published through their journals). By the same logic one could ask why
should governments support research (or for that matter higher education) at
all?
Most research published in most Indian journals, irrespective of whether the
journals are published by academies, learned societies, goverment
departments or private companies - is supported by the government. As
research is incomplete till the results are made public, it stands to reason
that if we support performing research we must also support its
dissemination through publication in peer reviewed journals. That is why
governments in poor countries support both performance of research and
publication of the results. That is why the Wellcome Trust is ready to pay
publication charges (author side fee) for papers resulting from their
grants.
There is also the point that although the journals may be published by
scholarly societies/ academies, papers may be written by non-members. And
most of the authors would have received public support either in the form of
salaries or research grants.
There is another reason why it is in public interest to facilitate free flow
of research information. We support science because we believe it is good
for the people. And science cannot be performed in an information vacuum. As
Newton said long ago, we see further because we stand upon the shoulders of
giants. Meaning that we are able to advance scientific knowledge by pushing
the frontiers because we have the benefit of the knowledge built by other
scientists recorded and readily available to us. It is to make the
literature of science readily available to all our scientists, we need to
make them freely available on the Internet. So even those who are unable to
take a paid subscription can have access to the information published in a
journal.
It is fallacious to think that everything should have a price tag and
nothing should be free. It goes against the Gandhian ideals of Trusteeship
and Antyodaya. Why would MIT, cambridge, make more than two-thirds of its
course material free on the Internet through its Open Course Ware programme?
And why would many other universities as far away as in China and Japan
follow the MIT model? Why would the Department of Space provide free
transponder space for education and rural development initiatives? Because
the pursuit of public good activities is a mark of civilized society.
Finally, if we really had insisted all along on a viable business plan, much
of Indian science would have found it extremely difficult to survive at one
stage or the other. Fortunately for us, both the founding fathers of modern
Indian science and the the political leadership were sagacious enough to
realise that things do take time to stabilise.
Subbiah Arunachalam
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kanikaram Satyanarayana"
I suspect the model III being followed in India and Brazil may not be a long term solution. In the current globalized scenerio, there is no reason why Govt (in the case of IndMed, the Indian Council of Medical Research) should subsidize the dissemination of research of learned societies published through their journals. Our idea behind supporting this initiative primarily was provide a window (through the web) to researchers in India and abroad who often compalined about the near-inaccessibility of Indian literature.
Soon, we will probably have a hard look at the existing journals being covered in the IndMed to assess their 'utility' to weed out those that are hardly consulted. In phase II we would encourage the other journals to set up their own web sites (if they do not already have) and may be provide linkages through the IndMed database.
In the long run, only those Indian journals which publish 'useful' information and have a viable business plan will survive.
Satyanarayana K. Satyanarayana Sr Deputy Director-General & Editor, Indian Journal of Medical Research Division of Publication & Information Indian Council of Medical Research Ramalingaswami Bhawan Ansari Nagar New Delhi 110029