RE: NYT on Cornyn-Lieberman

[JOHANNES VELTEROP <velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com>]

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