RE: NYT on Cornyn-Lieberman

["Peter Banks" <pbanks@diabetes.org>]

Though you may not have seriously meant that publishers should 
simply be paid for their services to do the work of 'formalising' 
the literature, through peer review, editing, and other services, 
that is pretty much what many OA advocates are assuming 
for-profit and non-profit publishers should do.

For nonprofit publisher, the argument seems to be (as Richard 
Feinman as argued) that nonprofts should peer review and edit 
manuscripts pretty much at cost, then allow the final manuscripts 
to me made freely available to anyone, eliminating the chance to 
generate any income to offset the substantial investment the 
society has made, to reinvest in publishing operations, or to 
fund any other research or educational program. No sane nonprofit 
or forproft executive would ever accept such a business plan.

Of course, the peer-review only option might create a new 
publishing system. Eliminate journals as we know them, and just 
set up peer review institutes that would subject manuscripts to 
peer review and editing, but not publish or distribute them. 
Authors, or funding agencies, would simply pay the institutes to 
formalize their papers, then deposit them in PMC or other OA 
repositories. To have credibility, the peer-review institutes 
would have to be run by credible organizations, like major 
research universities, who would of course have to charge high 
prices for faculty time and other services, which would lead to 
complaints by librarians that peer review costs too much, which 
would lead to another ten years of debate on liblicense. The more 
thngs change.....

Peter Banks

Starting June 1, my contact information is:
Peter Banks
Banks Publishing
10332 Main Street
Box 158
Fairfax, VA 22030
Phone  (703) 591-6544
Fax (703) 383-0765
pbanks@bankspub.com


>>> velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com 05/11/06 8:02 PM >>>

Lisa is right, authors can just publish their papers on some blog 
or other web site, thus making sure that it is publicly available 
for free, and they need not bother a publisher.

However, there is great value in 'formalising' scientific and 
scholarly literature. That 'formalising' is, in short, what 
journals and their publishers contribute.

Instead of stopping to accept articles funded by governments and 
other funders who require open access, as Lisa suggests (not 
seriously, I think, but in exasperation), it would be better if 
publishers were simply paid for their services to do this work of 
'formalising' the literature. The Wellcome Trust has formulated 
it as follows: Publishing is integral to doing research, and 
therefore the cost of publishing is integral to the cost of doing 
research. They mean, I think, 'formal' publishing. And they put 
their money where their mouth is.

Of course, there are still practical hurdles to overcome, but the 
acknowledgement on the one hand that open access is good and on 
the other that formal publishing is no sinecure, is part of 
research and costs money, would be a good start to finding ways 
to surmount whatever practical hurdles there are.

Jan Velterop
_____________________

Lisa Dittrich <lrdittrich@aamc.org> wrote:

If the research should be free to all, then simply make it
available, sans review, editing, etc., to the public on some
publicly available Web site. THAT is the solution.

What we "publishing hacks"--or, correction, this particular
hack--objects to is having to give away work to which I and my
staff have SUBSTANTIVELY contributed. In essence, it no longer
belongs solely to the researcher or his/her funder, and no one,
including the public, has paid any of the costs of what I and my
staff have contributed. I am not being greedy--our journal is not
a profit maker.

I simply want our work to be appropriately compensated (not to
mention simply ACKNOWLEDGED--this proposed legislation, and its
many proponents, act as if publishers add no value at all, or at
least nothing that cannot be recouped in six months time). The
journal's staff, a fine group of people who require reasonable
salaries, health care, etc., work hard to ensure that mss. are
properly tracked, reviewed, and substantively edited (which means
ensuring that authors' mistakes, bad writing, etc., are
corrected). Our authors pay us no fees. Our subscription prices
are low.

You could argue that we should cut most of our staff and do none
of these things. Fine. Then you are back to my plan of simply
posting results on a Web site. Authors can't have it both ways.
Either you want what publishers offer--for which you must
compensate us--or you don't.

I actually hope that an opposite push comes, and journals stop
accepting mss. from government funded authors (a dream, I know).
Let Varmus's original plan be put in place, and let's have a
non-vetted Web site of research results, free to all. This seems
really to be the goal. I personally have no problem with
it--let's just be honest about our intentions and real about the
consequences of whatever approach we choose!

Lisa Dittrich
Managing Editor
Academic Medicine
Washington, D.C. 20037
www.academicmedicine.org