[LIS-Forum] Open Access Journals?

Dear Friends, OA signifies the democratization of knowledge and support a socially responsible way to distribute knowledge. This trend is picking up. A millions of dollars is being invested for content creation. Thsese content may be partly free or patly charged. There have been some palyers behind scholarly communication. Example: Government, societies, Commercial Establishments, Social Set-ups, and Tecnologies. Today also these are the players. Now individuals scholars have to decide when and how to publish and maintain copyright. Same thing is happening in other industries. New players and business are facing mergers and acquisitions. There is stiff competition between Microsoft, Open Source Tools, Google, Yahoo, etc. Suppliers and Publishers are putting wikis, databases, free contents alongwith their priced ones. But I am sure smart and socially responsible will survive. P K Upadhyay http://mcitconsortium.nic.in

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" To: "sathya" ; Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 4:25 PM Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] Open Access Journals?

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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

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