Something is missing though; the development of the open access movement, probably one of the most significant things to happen in scientific communication in the recent period, is barely mentioned. Martin Tilly, of the journal's publisher, Wiley-Blackwell, mentions briefly that content three years old or more is freely available, though by no means all, as I discovered when searching for an article from 1998....
The reason for this silence may be that HILJ's position on open access, in contrast to our North American colleagues' Journal of the Medical Library Association, is not well developed. A three year embargo, when one takes into account the length of time it takes for research to be written up, submitted, reviewed, revised, resubmitted, published and printed, means that it will be more like five years before research results are freely available to the community. Worse, this three year embargo is coupled with the imposition on authors of a six-month post-publication embargo on self-archiving, though pre-prints may be freely self-archived. This journals is, as it should be, owned by the profession and an urgent task for HILJ, and for the Health Libraries Group [HLG], whose journals it is, is to make sure access is improved long before the next big birthday.
Graham Walton, editor of HILJ, responded to Roper's post in the comment section:
Thank you for giving the 25th anniversary issue of HILJ prominence on your blog. Just a few points: ...
2) HLG engages in a wide range of activities and services for its members because of the strong financial position it has through the HILJ publishing model. If this was to change, HLG would have to significantly draw back from the current levels of support
3) HILJ was warded an impact factor this year which can be attributed in many ways to the strong partnership between HLG and its commercial publisher. The issue of open access and HILJ is discussed at least annually but care must be taken to ensure HILJ’s current strong position is not threatened. I am sure you were delighted that the 25th anniversary issue at least has been published on the open access model and is free to the world.
Ben Toth responded to Walton's comment briefly on Roper's blog and at greater length on his own blog. From the latter:
...Tom [Roper] believes, as I do, that librarians should be promoting open access, and that consequently the closed access publication model of HILJ is to be regretted. Graham's argument against open access is in 3 parts, which are, in summary: 1. You know the position so why are you raising the issue? 2. The arrangement enables HLG to deliver valuable services to users. 3. Wiley's support has given HILJ an impact factor. Let's look at the arguments in turn.
HILJ does indeed have a journal impact factor, placing it 31st out of the 56 journals in the library and information science category. This is a very modest performance after 25 years. But the point is - could this have been achieved without publisher support? The evidence suggests that it might. There are higher ranking journals in the category, which are open access, such as Information Research. And evidence from other fields suggests that open access journals can have very good impact factors....
The arrangement with HILJ does produce an income for HLG. But does the income benefit HLG members, who pay a stiff fee to CILIP or a £25 per annum fee direct to HLG? Looking at the HLG accounts and list of recent activities it appears that the largest expense borne by HLG is its conference, which takes place every 2 years. The second largest expense is that of the committee itself, not surprising given the large number of committee members. Beyond the conference, and using the HLG website as a guide, its is hard to detect many educational and professional development activities arranged by HLG....Perhaps there are events organised by HLG, but they don't appear as a significant cost on the HLG balance sheet....
The third argument can be paraphrased 'that's just the way it is'. This argument might carry more weight if the income from HILJ was used to obvious benefit and if the publisher was making the journal a leader in its field. Neither of these appears to be true, so maybe it's time for a drains-up look at the relationship between HLG and HILJ, especially in a year when HLG agreed a 9% increase in the price of the journal (that's about x3 the rate of inflation, more likely around x8 inflation by the mid 2009)....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/28/2008 10:54:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
