The University of California Academic Council has written an open letter to the ACS (June 7, 2005). Excerpt: 'In discussion with colleagues at the University of California and elsewhere we have come to understand that PubChem represents a vital next step for NIH in leveraging its investment in the human genome project by providing data on small molecules....By ensuring that publicly financed knowledge is broadly accessible on the Internet in this way, NIH is enhancing the return on public investment in research and stimulating further innovation by public and private scientific enterprises....[W]e are convinced through discussions with and analyses by colleagues that PubChem does not represent an imminent threat to CAS, that indeed science and the public are well-served by continued development of PubChem and, further, that ACS is missing an opportunity to work creatively and collaboratively with NIH and others to create complementary, affordable services in direct support of its charter of "encouraging the advancement of chemistry."...At the University of California, as elsewhere, faculty are carefully considering the challenges and opportunities to strengthen scholarly communication systems. It is well understood that current systems for the dissemination of scholarship are economically unsustainable. We believe that scholars, universities, societies, research funders, and publishers must work together to address the economic dysfunctions and reinvent scholarly publishing systems that are healthy, equitable, and sustainable. We are concerned that the ACS is not providing the leadership toward sustainable scholarly communication systems that we might expect of our best scholarly societies. In addition to the unwarranted action against PubChem, your explicit declaration that "the principle sources of funding for the Society's activities include net revenues generated by the Publications Division and the Chemical Abstracts Service Division," and the associated hyperinflationary 9% annual price increases of your publications and services, leads us to believe that revenue generation is a higher priority than "increasing and diffusing chemical knowledge." University of California faculty members have authored or co-authored over 2,300 articles in ACS publications in the last 2 ˝ years alone. Seventy-two UC faculty hold ACS journal editorial positions and a number serve on ACS committees and sections. In addition to expressing our concerns to you directly, we are encouraging these faculty members to discover the facts, discuss the issue with colleagues, and let ACS know their preferences. In the meantime we sincerely hope you will work with the society’s membership to rethink your position on PubChem and to establish ACS as a proactive and creative contributor to the evolution of economically sustainable scholarly communication systems.'
Update. Also see the UC Academic Council's open letter to Rep. Ralph Regula (R-OH), making the same argument in support of PubChem against the lobbying of ACS.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/10/2005 02:43:00 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.
