USA TODAY
Posted 8/29/2004
Scientists want research papers freely available
By Dan Vergano
Twenty-five Nobel Prize-winning scientists today are calling for the government to make all taxpayer-funded research papers freely available.
Signers include DNA co-discoverer James Watson and former National Institutes of Health chief Harold Varmus, a longtime supporter of open access.
“As scientists and taxpayers, too, we therefore object to barriers that hinder, delay or block the spread of scientific knowledge supported by federal tax dollars – including our own works.”
Science is driven by researchers publishing results to communicate findings, collect funding and gain tenure. About 25,000 scientific and scholarly journals worldwide publish studies. Most hold copyrights to papers, charging single-paper access fees as high as $28. Yearly subscription fees rose 226% from 1986 to 2000 and averaged $840 this year (though for one journal, Brain Research, the subscription runs $18,856), says the Association of Research Libraries. Publishers say the fees are necessary for journals to survive, even for taxpayer-funded studies.
Taxpayers pay for researchers to prepare, review and edit manuscripts, the says, while scientific societies and large publishing firms reap the profits.
Over the past three years, calls from scientists and research librarians for open access to studies have grown louder, spurred by rising Internet use and higher costs for subscriptions. About 1,200 open-access journals now exist, up from five in 1992. Open-access publishers charge study authors a printing fee and release the information freely. For example, the publication fee for PLoS Biology is $1,500.
As the scientists make their case to Congress and to NIH chief Elias Zerhouni, Zerhouni meets today and Tuesday with scientists to discuss a June House Appropriations Committee directive to make electronic copies of NIH-funded research available for free within six months of publication, beginning next year. He met with publishers in July and endorsed the committee’s idea in principle. “We need a balanced policy that preserves the ability of journals and publishers to play a major role,” he says.
Alan Leshner, chief of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes Science magazine, says, “I think all the problems are workable” for the free-access publishing plan. “The question is how to do it so we can still pay our bills.”
NIH is the big dog of basic research funding with a $28 billion budget, making it a focus of the open-access debate. The federal government funds about 59% of all academic research and development, followed by universities (20%) and state and local government (7.1%), according to the National Research Council.
“The whole discussion of how we share research results is a very productive one,” Leshner says. “Science is about communicating results to serve society.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2004-08-29-free-research_x.htm
Comment: Harold Varmus and colleagues initiated a movement toward open
access publication of scientific research by establishing PLoS (Public Library of Science). Last year PLoS introduced its first publication: PLoS Biology. Next month, the inaugural issue of their new publication, PLoS Medicine, will be released.
This is a historic moment in medicine. PLoS Medicine is an open access, peer-reviewed medical journal. Open access is explained on the PLoS Medicine website:
“All works published in PLoS Medicine are open access, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. Everything is immediately available online without cost to anyone, anywhere – to read, download, redistribute, include in databases, and otherwise use – subject only to the condition that the original authorship is properly attributed. Copyright is retained by the author.”
One of the most exciting aspects is that poor nations will have free access to the very latest in medical thought and research, no longer hindered by the current high cost of obtaining access to the medical literature.
I encourage you to peruse the website of PLoS Medicine:
http://www.plosmedicine.org/medicine/
