Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 10:04:12 +0530 From: Vyasamoorthy@icicikp.com Following Editorial in The Hindu of 3/8/2004 supports our cause. (I = think 'For' in the title is a typo; it should be 'free') [Free?] FOR ACCESS TO SCIENCE PUBLICATIONS=20 IN JULY, THE movement for `open access' got an important boost when the = Appropriations Committee of the United States' House of Representatives = and the Science & Technology Committee of the United Kingdom's House of = Commons recommended measures that would help make scientific journal = publications available more freely online. Scientists are judged by = their research output. Each year they publish more than a million papers = in approximately 16,000 science, technology and medical journals put out = by more than 2,000 publishers worldwide. Commercial publishers have a = dominant presence, with Reed Elsevier having a 28 per cent market share. = There has been a growing feeling that neither the public, which pays for = much of the science that is published, nor the scientists, who receive = no payment either for their papers or for carrying out the `peer review' = that ensures that quality is maintained in journals, benefit by limiting = access to the papers through journal subscriptions. Not only are = journals expensive; there is mounting criticism that journal costs have = been rising exorbitantly. The Commons' S&T Committee noted that = commercial scientific journal publishers enjoyed "substantially higher" = profit margins than the academic, educational and professional = publishing sector as a whole. And this was happening at a time libraries = were obliged to cut down on journal subscriptions in order to keep = within budgets. The problem is particularly acute for scientific = institutions in developing countries such as India. Another issue that = has been raised is that the larger public has little access to the = scientific research that their tax money makes possible.=20 The limitations of the `subscriber pays' system has led some to attempt = an `author pays' model for scientific journals. BioMed Central, which = was established in 2001, has now over 100 journals in biology and = medicine. [Public Library of Science] PLoS Biology, launched in October = 2003, has the ambition of joining the front ranks of scientific = journals; PLoS Medicine is to be launched soon. Prominent public and = private research sponsors such as the Wellcome Trust in the U.K., the = Max Planck Society in Germany, and the Centre National de la Recherche = Scientifique (CNRS) in France, have announced their support for such a = system of open access. But `author pays' publishing currently accounts = for merely five per cent of the total journal market. The Commons' S & T = Committee recommended that another alternative needs to be explored and = supported - storing published work electronically in institutional = archives. Just a month before the Committee published its report, = Elsevier announced that scientists publishing in its journals would be = allowed to post the final text of their articles on a personal or = institutional website. Over 80 per cent of the journal publishers allow = such archiving. The House Appropriations Committee suggested that copies = of articles published from research supported by the National Institutes = of Health be deposited within six months of publication in PubMed = Central, a free digital archive of life science literature.=20 The Commons' Committee recommended that "all U.K. 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"; and that "Research Councils and other Government = funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of all of = their articles in this way." It is an idea that India - where research = is overwhelmingly supported by the Government - must adopt with = conviction and enthusiasm. The software for such archiving is available = free of cost and has been used to establish an e-print archive at the = Indian Institute of Science. Not only must more such institutional = repositories be established; scientists need to take the lead in = ensuring that their papers are suitably archived. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Dr.P.Vyasamoorthy, Advisor, Virtual Information Centre, ICICI Knowledge Park, Genome Valley, Turkapally, Shameerpet Mandal,=20 RR District, Hyderabad 500078 INDIA Email: vyasamoorthy@icicikp.com Phone - Office: +91(40)23480053 Fax: +91(40)23480007 Phone Residence: = +91(40)27846631