[The old public/private duality is getting fuzzier]
http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999552
Free for all
Should all research papers in the biosciences be placed in one, free-access,
web library? Yes, say 12,000 scientists
A row has broken out over whether all scientific papers in the biosciences
should be placed in a single web library and made available free of charge
to everyone.
Backers of the idea state their case in the journal Science alongside
counter-arguments from the journal's own editors.
Controversially, supporters of the idea urge other scientists to sign a
petition calling for the library, and to boycott journals unwilling to
participate in the scheme. On Monday, the number of signatures collected
stood at 11,939.
The proposed archive, called "PubMed Central", was set up by Harold Varmus
when he was director of the US National Institutes of Health. Major journals
which already deposit their papers there include the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences and the British Medical Journal.
Ease and equality of access
"If it's in a central archive, it would be much easier to search between
papers and journals," says Rich Roberts of New England Biolabs in Beverly,
Massachusetts, and a prime backer of the idea.
Researchers in developing countries who cannot afford expensive
subscriptions to leading journals would have the same degree of access as
researchers in rich countries. "It would be a great equaliser," says
Roberts.
However, Science's editors are more equivocal about the idea. "There's
nothing wrong with the idea broadly stated," says Donald Kennedy, the
editor. "Everyone likes the idea of having a public library of science."
"But for us, the economics are important," he says. He points out that
Science is run by the American Association for the Association of Science
and earns the revenue to keep it going through subscriptions and
advertising. These sources could dry up, he fears, if it ceded control of
its archives to a third party.
He says that it costs money and takes enormous skill to guide scientific
papers through the peer review process and to get them properly checked and
edited.
Specialist journals would suffer too, he thinks. With their "crown jewels"
displayed to all and sundry on the new site, journals would lose their core
subscriptions from libraries.
Monopoly rights
Roberts' solution is a compromise allowing all contributing journals to wait
until six months after publication before depositing their papers in PubMed
Central. "We think six months is a good lifetime and gives the journal
monopoly rights for that time," he says.
Roberts believes that scientists and libraries will not cancel subscriptions
because the pace of science is so fast that they won't want to wait the six
months before they see the papers. In a concession to this demand, Science
has agreed to allow all its own papers to be accessed free of charge 12
months after publication, from its own web site. But Roberts is not
impressed.
"It's a step in the right direction but it doesn't help the central archive
because they'll keep it on their own website," he says. Roberts adds this
would defeat one aim, as cross-searching would still be difficult.
Science also has misgivings about depositing all the world's scientific
literature on a government-run website, which in theory could be vulnerable
to political intervention. It says that a non-profit site similar to that
envisaged already exists, called High-Wire Press. Science contributes to it
already, as do 230 other journals.
Web links:
PubMed Central
Public library of science petition
High-Wire press
Science
