The House Appropriations Committee Enters Scholarly Publishing Fray, AAU CFR Weekly Wrap-Up, July 30, 2004, pp. 1-2. An unsigned story reporting the committee action and the AAU stance on it. Excerpt: "AAU has not taken a position on the substance of the proposal contained in the report language, but the association believes that a congressional prescription for scholarly publishing is unwise and unwarranted. However the debate over public access is decided, the quality and reliability of scholarly publishing should remain the first priority. A congressional mandate requiring a specific business model for the scholarly publishing
enterprise prejudges what should be an internal, transparent deliberation by the academic and scientific communities. That process should examine the full range of options for controlling costs and increasing access to scholarly publishing while preserving its quality and reliability. Publishers are exploring different options, and outside groups or the government --no matter how well intended-- should not prematurely pick winners and losers."
(PS: There are two objections here: that there should be no federal mandate and that this mandate will force journals to adopt a specific business model. I respond to both in today's issue of my newsletter: "I've heard publishers complain...that this federal mandate will force publishers to adopt an open-access business model. But in every case, these publishers misunderstood the proposal. It proposes OA through archiving, not OA through journals. OA through archiving will have consequences for journals, but it will not require journals to convert to OA business models....Some publishers object that we should 'let the market work' and not turn to a federal mandate. One problem with this objection is that scientific research and its dissemination are permeated by government spending and government policies. Hence, this is not a market in any ordinary or classical sense at all. For example, in most countries (certainly in the U.S.) most funded scientific research is funded by governments, most scientists work at public institutions and are paid by governments, and most subscriptions to subscription-based journals are purchased by public institutions and paid for by governments.")
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/02/2004 07:37:00 PM.
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.
