Re: Taxpayer rights

[Mark Funk <mefunk@mail.med.cornell.edu>]

In reply to Joe's comments:

In both the print model and the current online model of journals, 
non-taxpayers outside the U.S. borders can read research articles 
supported by U.S. taxpayers, so this is not an intriguing 
geopolitical question.

The NIH proposal should not be tarred with perceived imperfections of 
various OA models. The proposal does not create an unfunded mandate. 
The costs for hosting these articles will be borne by the NIH, not 
the publishers. Further, I do not see how the proposal will drain any 
capital from scholarly publishing. Why not? Look at the numbers:

*PubMed has 575,283 articles with a publication year of 2003.
*Of these, 62,294 articles had the checktag "Support, U.S., Gov't, 
P.H.S.," which is used to indicate NIH (and PHS) support for the 
research.
*If 2003 is at all representative, it appears that around 11% of the 
articles in PubMed would be affected by the proposal.

I cannot imagine any library or individual cancelling a journal title 
because 11% of the articles would be available free through PubMed 
Central. The number of affected articles is so relatively small that 
publishers should not see cancellations if the proposal is 
implemented.

The NIH proposal does not radically increase the number of papers in 
circulation. They are still peer-reviewed by the journals. I also 
fail to see any connection between NIH grant funding and publishers' 
costs of peer-review, hosting, and searching.

Perhaps it's a rhetorical question asked of a straw man, but no, 
nobody believes that depositing a paper in a public archive will be a 
complete substitute for all that is currently garnered from the 
formal publication process. Self-archiving, institutional archiving, 
and the NIH propsal are add-ons to the formal publication process, 
not a substitute. What the NIH proposal does is increase the 
availability of U.S. taxpayer-supported research results. It will not 
save libraries any money, but neither will it be a burden to 
publishers.


At 12:01 AM -0400 9/1/04, Electronic Content Licensing Discussion wrote:
> From: "Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@worldnet.att.net>
> To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
> Subject: Taxpayer rights
>
> > Recently, there has been much discussion about the rights of 
taxpayers to access the published results of research funded through 
taxpayer dollars.  Which makes sense!
> JE:  It makes half-sense or partial sense, but it does not make horse
sense. Putting aside the intriguing geopolitical question of whether 
these rights extend beyond American borders to nontaxpayers, the 
problem with this policy is that it creates an unfunded mandate.  Open 
Access in whatever form (self-archiving, institutional archiving, 
author-pays online journals, etc.) will drain capital from scholarly 
publishing, even as it radically increases the number of papers in 
circulation.  Hosting, searching, peer review--all these things cost 
money.  Is the NIH proposing to add these costs to every grant 
application, costs that will continue to rise with the volume of 
research?  Does anyone really believe that depositing a paper in a 
national (global?) archive will be a complete substitute for all that 
is currently garnered from the formal publication process?

> I commented in an earlier posting that it is "eminently reasonable" for
the NIH to make stipulations as to publication requirements for funded
research. That does not make it smart or wise.

Joe Esposito