Regain Control of Scholarly Communication
See sections below:
The Issues
The current model of scholarly communication has become economically unsustainable, restrictive, and increasingly limited in its ability to make information accessible.
Traditionally, scholarly communication has relied on the "gift" of editing and peer review to journals, while libraries have purchased the results at escalating prices. At the same time universities are facing smaller budgets and increasing volumes of scholarly materials, some publishers are earning extraordinary profits from the international, multi-billion dollar business of scholarly communication.
The University of California's scholarly outputs, and your research results, are therefore not reaching their potential impact. Even if UC's world-class library collections could keep up economically in such conditions, there are other reasons to consider and influence an evolution in scholarly communication systems.
Driven largely by digital and network technologies, scholarship of all sorts can be made available to more readers, more quickly, at economically sustainable costs. Through careful experimentation and management, the critical features of quality control, long-term preservation, and measures of impact and use are certain to be retained in evolving systems.
The facts:
- UC faculty serve on the editorial boards of about 15 percent of the top-tier journals.
- The UC libraries spent $20 million on print and digital journal subscriptions in 2002-03.
- In 2002, science, technology, and medical (STM) publishing was an $11 billion market (source: Outsell, Inc.). Together, two of the largest STM publishers accounted for 60 percent of UC's shared digital journals budget, but only 33 percent of ejournal use.
- From 1986 to 2002, the consumer price index rose 64 percent, journal prices rose 227 percent, and book prices rose 75 percent. In biomedicine alone, price increases accompanied 10 of 11 mergers in the last decade (sources: Association of Research Libraries; Mark J. McCabe, Journal Pricing and Mergers: A Portfolio Approach. The American Economic Review, vol. 92, no. 1, Mar. 2002).
- From 1986 to 2002, the number of journal titles published increased 58 percent and library journal expenditures increased 227 percent, but the number of titles typically acquired only increased 9 percent (source: Association of Research Libraries).
Rising costs, declining purchase power
Source: Create Change, Association of Research Libraries.
How Stakeholders Are Making a Difference
A wide range of stakeholders are working to reshape scholarly communication, including libraries, University faculty and administration, and publishers.
The UC libraries are helping analyze the economics of the current model of scholarly publishing, and are working with faculty to better align cost with value in the materials they purchase. They are also working with the UC Press and others to create and host experiments in scholarly publishing. Finally, as suggested by their faculty and administrative advisory groups, they are assembling as much information about the challenges and opportunities as possible. See the UC libraries' scholarly communication program for more information.
University administration and faculty governance are re-thinking institutional policies and commitments.
Examples of administration and faculty actions:
- A resolution from the Systemwide Library and Scholarly Information Advisory Committee recommended that Systemwide Library Planning share data about the economics of scholarly publishing among the University community.
- The Academic Council formed the Special Committee on Scholarly Communication to analyze scholarly communication issues.
- The UC Santa Cruz Academic Senate passed a resolution in 2003 calling for "its tenured members to give serious and careful consideration to cutting their ties with Elsevier." See the resolution: [PDF]
- Two UC San Francisco faculty members called for a boycott of Cell Press journals because the publisher, Reed-Elsevier, was charging UC too much for electronic access in 2003. See a report about the boycott in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Some publishers are creating new business models that support principles of sustainable scholarly publishing. Many others are responding with experiments that change one or more of their traditional publishing models. See news and issues for some of the headlines.
Examples of publishers who are creating new business models:
- Public Library of Science is a non-profit, open-access publisher committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource.
- BioMed Central is another open-access publisher that provides immediate, free access to peer-reviewed biological and medical research.
The Opportunities
As scholars, you add most of the value to scholarly communication by creating, filtering, and consuming scholarship. You can help create and support alternatives to the present system, and increase the reach and impact of your scholarship.
What you can do:
- Negotiate with publishers to retain certain copyrights, e.g., the right to post your work in an institutional repository or distribute copies to your classes.
- Use alternative publishing options, such as UC's eScholarship Repository, which offers UC faculty a central location for depositing a variety of scholarly output.
- Support sustainable scholarly communication by wielding your influence with publishers.
More Information
- Resources for reference: Includes links to other organizations that are addressing issues in scholarly communication.