RE: STM comments on U. S. National Institutes of Health Unfunded Mandate

["Sally Morris \(Morris Associates\)" <sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk>]

While I couldn't speak for STM, a large number of publishers (the 
majority of those in Ulrich's, for example) are nonprofits - 
learned societies, professional associations, university presses 
etc.  And as well as the journals these publishers issue on their 
own behalf, a significant proportion (over 27%, according to my 
calculations) of journals published by commercial publishers 
actually belong to, and are published on behalf of, nonprofits. 
Raym Crow estimated in 2005 that 38% of the 19,500 active, 
refereed scholarly journals he identified in Ulrich's were 
self-published by nonprofit organizations, and a further 17% were 
published by commercial publishers on behalf of nonprofits. (I 
wrote about this in Learned Publishing last October).

The 'mission' of these nonprofit organizations can be ascertained 
from their constitutions etc - usually available on their 
websites - and generally includes something about disseminating 
knowledge in their field.

Sally Morris
Consultant, Morris Associates (Publishing Consultancy)
Email:  sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Hunsucker, R.L.
Sent: 08 January 2008 03:31
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: STM comments on U. S. National Institutes of Health Unfunded
Mandate

Ahem:

> . . . their primary mission of maximizing the dissemination of
> knowledge through economically self-sustaining business models
> . . .

OK, since we're singing the praises here of "an evidence-based
approach" what is the evidence that such is truly the "primary
mission" of (at least the largest players in) the STM-club ?

I'm all ears.

- L. Hunsucker

( And are the shareholders aware of this, I wonder ? )

________________________________

From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of Janice Kuta
Sent: Sat 1/5/2008 3:45 AM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: STM comments on U. S. National Institutes of Health Unfunded
Mandate

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

STM comments on U. S. National Institutes of Health Unfunded Mandate

OXFORD, UK, 4 JANUARY 2008 - STM today expressed disappointment
with the recent passage of legislation in the United States. This
legislation (the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2007 (H.R.
2764)) includes provisions directing the National Institutes of
Health to mandate that investigators who are supported by grants
from the National Institutes of Health must deposit their
manuscripts directly into the National Library of Medicine's
PubMed Central database no later than 12 months after the
official date of publication.

The legislation neither provides compensation for the added-value
of services that these manuscripts have received from publishers
nor does it earmark funds to ensure the economic sustainability
of the broad and systematic archiving this sort of project
requires. It also undermines a key intellectual property right
known as copyright - long a cornerstone used to foster creativity
and innovation.

STM believes that this legislation establishes an unfunded
government mandate with an unknown impact on the advancement of
science and puts at risk a system which has enabled more research
to be available to more scientists in more countries than at any
point in the history of science.

[SNIP]