DC Principles Coalition Issues Press Release

["Martin Frank" <MFrank@The-APS.org>]

The following press release was posted to the DC Principles website at
http://www.dcprinciples.org/press/2.htm.

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Nonprofit Publishers Oppose Government Mandates for Scientific 
Publishing

Washington, DC (February 20, 2007) A coalition of 75 nonprofit 
publishers opposes any legislation that would abruptly end a 
publishing system that has nurtured independent scientific 
inquiry for generations. One such measure, the Federal Research 
Public Access Act introduced in the 109th Congress would have 
required all federally funded research to be deposited in an 
accessible database within six months of acceptance in a 
scientific journal.  Some open access advocates are pressing for 
the introduction of a similar measure in the 110th Congress.

In essence, such legislation would impose government-mandated 
access policies and government-controlled repositories for 
federally funded research published in scientific journals, 
according to members of the Washington DC Principles for Free 
Access to Science Coalition.

"The long tradition of methodical scientific inquiry and 
information sharing through publication in scholarly journals has 
helped advance medicine to where it is today," said Martin Frank 
of the American Physiological Society and coordinator of the 
coalition. "We as independent publishers must determine when it 
is appropriate to make content freely available, and we believe 
strongly it should not be determined by government mandate."

The Coalition also reaffirmed its ongoing practice of making 
millions of scientific journal articles available free of charge, 
without an additional financial burden on the scientific 
community or on funding agencies. More than 1.6 million free 
articles are already available to the public free of charge on 
HighWire Press.

"The scholarly publishing system is a delicate balance between 
the need to sustain journals financially and the goal of 
disseminating scientific knowledge as widely as possible. 
Publishers have voluntarily made more journal articles available 
free worldwide than at any time in history -- without government 
intervention," noted Kathleen Case of the American Association 
for Cancer Research.

The Coalition expressed concern that a mandate timetable for free 
access to all federally funded research would harm journals, 
scientists, and ultimately the public. Subscriptions to journals 
with a high percentage of federally funded research would decline 
rapidly. Subscription revenues support the quality control system 
known as peer review and also support the educational work of 
scientific societies that publish journals.

Undermining subscriptions would shift the cost of publication 
from the publisher who receives subscription revenue to the 
researcher who receives grants.  Such a shift will:

* Divert scarce dollars from research.  Publishers now pay the 
cost of publication out of subscription revenue; if the authors 
have to pay, the funds will come from their research grants. 
Nonprofit journals without subscription revenue have to rely on 
grants, which further diverts funding from research.

* Result in only well-funded scientists being able to publish 
their work. The ability to publish in scientific journals should 
be available equally to all.

* Reduce the ability of journals to fund peer review.  Most 
journals spend 40% or more of their revenue on quality control 
through the peer review system; without subscription income and 
with limitations on author fees, peer review would suffer.

* Harm those scientific societies that rely on income from 
journals to fund the professional development of scientists. 
Revenues from scholarly publications fund research, fellowships 
to junior scientists, continuing education, and mentoring 
programs to increase the number of women and under-represented 
groups in science, among many other activities.

Members of the DC Principles Coalition have long supported 
responsible free access to science and have made:

* selected important studies immediately available online, in 
their entirety and at no charge

* studies available at no cost to patients who request them

* all abstracts immediately available online at no charge

* full text of the journal available at no charge to everyone 
worldwide within months of publication, depending on each 
publisher's business and publishing requirements

* all journal content available free to scientists working in 
many low-income nations

* articles available free of charge online through reference 
linking between journals

* content available for indexing by major search engines so that 
readers worldwide can easily locate information

"By establishing government repositories for federally funded 
research, taxpayers would be paying for systems that duplicate 
the online archives already maintained by independent 
publishers," Case noted. "The implications of the U.S. government 
becoming the world's largest publisher of scientific articles 
have not been addressed," she added.

According to Frank, "As not-for-profit publishers, we believe 
that a free society allows for the co-existence of many 
publishing models, and we will continue to work closely with our 
publishing colleagues to set high standards for the scholarly 
publishing enterprise."

***

For further information contact Martin Frank at 301.634.7118.

About the DC Principles for Free Access

The DC Principles for Free Access to Science Coalition 
(http://www.dcprinciples.org/) represents more than 75 of the 
nation's leading nonprofit medical and scientific societies and 
publishers. The not-for-profit publishers are committed to 
working in partnership with scholarly communities such as 
libraries to ensure that these communities are sustained, science 
is advanced, research meets the highest standards, and patient 
care is enhanced with accurate and timely information.

About HighWire Press

HighWire Press (http://highwire.stanford.edu/), a division of the
Stanford University Libraries, HighWire Press hosts the largest
repository of high impact, peer-reviewed content, with 1014 journals
<http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/allsites.dtl> and 4,109,139 full
text articles from over 130 scholarly publishers. HighWire-hosted
publishers have collectively made 1,590,623 articles free
<http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl>. With our partner
publishers we produce 71 of the 200 most-frequently-cited journals.

Martin Frank, Ph.D.
Executive Director, American Physiological Society
9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20814-3991 USA
Tel: 301-634-7118
Fax: 301-634-7241
E-mail: mfrank@the-aps.org
APS Home Page: www.the-aps.org