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Rising Journal Costs Limit Scholarly Access
Courtesy of Emory
University
Are publishers getting rich publishing your research? A Bear-Stearns
evaluation of Reed-Elsevier (one of the world's largest publishers of
scholarly journals) recently rated the company, which earns profits of
almost 40% annually, "a stockholder's dream." Should private
publishers be getting rich selling information generated by research that
is funded by academic institutions and the public? What's happening and how
does it affect scholars? This
article looks at one university’s experience.
The Problem
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In 2001 Emory was paying $17,444 for an annual
subscription to Brain, a multidisciplinary journal devoted to
fundamental research in brain sciences. That same subscription costs
$21,269 today. The price increases have been constant and alarming.
According to data collected by the Association of Research Libraries
(ARL), during the 15-year period between 1986 and 2001, scholarly journal
prices jumped 215 per cent although the Consumer Price Index rose by just
64 percent. Journal prices actually grew twice as fast as health care
costs during this period. The arrival of electronic journals has not
stopped this trend. In fact, many publishers have been
"bundling" their electronic journals, forcing libraries to
subscribe to groups of titles in order to obtain any significant dollar
savings.
Top tier journals
continue to be concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group of
commercial publishers. The top six companies now publish about 4,000
journals. This concentration drives up prices. Elsevier Science, the
publishing arm of the Reed-Elsevier Group, is the largest publisher with
more than 1800 titles and some of the highest costs. Many of the Elsevier
titles are in the social sciences: International Journal of
Educational Research ($1292), Journal of Criminal Research
($914), Journal of Econometrics ($2463), Personality and Individual
Differences ($2018) and Social Science and Medicine ($4,174). World
Development, an Elsevier title which cost about $250 in 1997, now
costs $1887. In a time of tight university budgets, a crisis is building.
The continuing increase in journal pricing has led many academic
institutions to boycott selected publishers. Harvard, Cornell and the
University of California system have announced that they would no longer
subscribe to Elsevier's ScienceDirect electronic journal service because
of price increases and bundling requirements. In one of the latest
developments, the provosts of Duke, North Carolina State and UNC-Chapel
Hill have announced that the Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN)
will also end their consortial contract with ScienceDirect. One
consequence of this move will be the loss of electronic access to the
body of titles shared throughout TRLN. It is estimated that access to
400-500 electronic titles will be lost on each campus beginning in 2004.
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While Elsevier figures
prominently in discussions on serial price increases, the problem is
widespread and is impacting numerous disciplines. And it is not just
because of tight university budgets—it is caused in large part by
exorbitant subscription price increases that universities are protesting by
canceling subscriptions. In a recent article entitled "The Rise and
Rise of Journal Prices in African Studies," author Hans Zell, writes
that subscription prices for the 13 leading African Studies journals published
in English have been sky rocketing. African Studies (Oxford
University Press) has gone from $67 in 1997 to $230 in 2002/2003. Review
of African Political Economy (Taylor & Francis), has gone from $190
in 1997 to $420 last year. It was only $28 in 1989!
Thrown into the mix is the decision of many publishers to begin charging
for electronic copies of journals that used to be free with print
subscriptions. Oxford University Press is the latest example of this trend.
The net results of escalating journal costs on university libraries are
journal cancellations, decisions to stop duplicating formats (print or
electronic), and spending less money on monographs.
At the University of Georgia, the University Librarian recently issued an
open letter to all faculty notifying them that the Library would be
converting all subscriptions held in print and electronic formats to online
only. He also reported that this was a "stopgap measure" and UGA
would be forced to cancel journal titles in the coming years.
In October 2003, the entire editorial board of Elsevier's Journal of
Algorithms (JOA) resigned, citing the increasing inability of libraries
to afford the prices that commercial publishers charge. The editors opted
to work with the ACM to launch the new ACM Transactions on Algorithms
(TALG).
Journals at Emory
Researchers at Emory generally have been lucky. The
General Libraries has had reasonable budget increases and our consortial
contract for Elsevier's electronic journals was negotiated early in 2003 at
fairly favorable terms that will remain in effect until 2006. Still our
budgets cannot keep up with current price escalations and the General
Libraries have begun advocating the purchase/licensing of electronic over
print whenever possible. It is no longer possible to pay twice for various
formats of the same title.
Unlike the General Libraries, Emory's Health Sciences Library has had a
flat budget for several years. This is in effect a budget cut since there
are no funds to cover increases in journal costs. Continuing journal
cancellations have resulted and the General Libraries has reallocated some
of its own funds to cover costs for selected science and medical journals
used throughout the campus.
Possible Solutions
As a reaction to the growing crisis in scholarly
communication, new models for information dissemination are beginning to
appear. Open access is the most revolutionary of these. In open access,
publications are free for all users anywhere in the world and are archived
permanently in well-established online repositories. Costs are paid by
universities, foundations, federal agencies or others. Open access journals
are primarily online journals. This allows authors to include audio, video,
data, etc., as a part of their articles. Online publication also
means that information reaches users in a more timely manner. Emory
University is a charter member of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic
Resources Coalition (SPARC), an organization dedicated to the promotion of
scholarship through competitive alternatives to commercial publishing.
Emory also holds institutional memberships with several other the open
access publishers such as BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science
(PloS).What do such initiatives mean to you?
- Public Library
of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit initiative to publish open access
journals led by Nobel Laureate and former director of the NIH, Harold
Varmus. Its first goal, to publish a top-tier peer-reviewed science
journal that will compete with titles such as Science, Nature,
and Cell, was accomplished in October 2003 with the launch of
PloS-Biology. PLoS plans to publish other open access journals in
the future.
- BioMed Central publishes more than 100
peer-reviewed open access journals and hosts independent open access
journals. Emory is an institutional member of BioMed Central which
means that Emory authors can waive the article processing fees when
they submit articles to BioMed Central journals. Independent journals,
often started by academics frustrated by the publishers and high
prices of the journals they have been editing, are also trying to
follow the open access model. Here at Emory, Drs. Nickerson and
Boatright in the Department of Opthamalogy, started their own open
access peer-reviewed online journal in 1995, Molecular Vision,
that is now one of the top-rated journals in the field.
- Open access' biggest hurdle
is convincing authors that its journals are (or will be) as
prestigious as its for-profit competitors. With academic careers based
on publication records, authors want to be sure their work appears in
publications that will move their careers forward. Only by changing
the model of academic publishing as well as the tenure/promotion
policies at universities and research institutions can true reform
occur. At UC Berkeley, faculty, librarians, administrators and
graduate students agreed that the long-term interest in a better
publishing system and better journals forever should be put it ahead
of their short-term interest for journals next year.
Other Models
Scholarly societies, who publish journals in many
fields, are also trying to address the crisis in scholarly communication.
Many rely on journal subscriptions to help support their societies and
therefore are trying to develop more efficient models for their publishing
that don't necessarily go so far as to provide open access.
The American Anthropological Society (AAA) has recently changed its
publishing model. It has slashed its journal prices, providing online
access to all 29 of its journals (and their backfiles) to its members at no
charge beyond membership dues, and making all its titles available to
libraries for less than the present cost of its top five journals. All this
will be available through the AAA's new web portal, Anthrosource,
which will also provide access to things such as datasets and audio and
visual material.
What Can You Do?
USE YOUR INFLUENCE! Scholars and scientists have the power to change
the current situation. You are the producers and major consumers of
scholarly information and only through your influence will change occur.
1) Carefully examine the pricing, copyright, and subscription licensing
agreements of any journal you contribute to as an author, reviewer or
editor.
2) Examine copyright agreements before publishing and modify them if
possible to ensure your right to use your work or post it on a public
archive.
Copyright transfer agreements often require you to transfer all of your
copyrights exclusively to the publisher, thereby losing control of any
subsequent public distribution of your work. Restrictions on use of your
own work may prohibit personal distribution for teaching and research, as
well as publicly posting your paper on publicly available websites and
archives.
3) Where possible, publish in open access journals which employ funding
models that do not charge readers or their institutions for access. Serve
on editorial boards or review manuscripts for open access journals. (For a
list of open access journals, see the Directory of Open Access Journals.
4) Encourage your society to explore alternatives to contacting or selling
its publications to a commercial publisher.
5) Start your own open access journal!
More Information
SPARC Open Access Newsletter contains of list of recent
actions by universities. The monthly newsletter follows the continuing
controversy.
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