Scholarly Communication: taking back our research

report to FITAC November 17, 2003Wallace McLendon

Associate Director for Library ServicesHealth Sciences Library

What I’ll cover

Why our scholarly communication model is broken

Are Institutional Repositories the answer, or Is BioMed Central – a marriage of the

traditional publishing model with a new business model – the answer

Source: Create Change (brochure). ARL, ACRL, & SPARC, September 2003.

Libraries can not sustain journal collections

Trends in Molecular Science $140 in 2000, $1015 in 2002 (625%

increase) Human Molecular Genetics

$1030 in 2000, $1450 in 2002 (41% increase)

Journal of the History of Medicine & Allied Sciences

$105 in 2000, $240 in 2002 (129% increase)

Irony of today’s publishing model

Faculty produce research articles Faculty submit research to peer reviewed journals

and give up ownership of article Other faculty, on behalf of journals, act as editors &

peer reviewers accept articles Publishers compile and distribute research Libraries purchase faculty research from the

publisher Libraries house & distribute faculty research Faculty use the purchased research to conduct

further research

Today’s (soon yesterday’s) print-derived model:

Manuscript PublisherPublisher

Author transfers copyrightor exclusive publishing rights

©

Free Use

Only those who can afford expensive subscriptions or licences have access

Result:

crisis + capabilities = new scholarly communication model?

Behind the crisis Inflated journal costs – publisher consolidation Non-negotiation stance of publishers (bundles) Growth in volume of research Loss of non-container scholarly research

Capabilities Internet distribution system Digital networks/publish technology availability

Institutional Repositories (IRs) to the rescue?

Digital collections – not links or referrals Provide self-archiving, templates, self-indexing, standards Formats: pre-prints, peer-reviewed articles, monographs,

research, book chapters, enduring teaching materials, data sets, conference papers, theses, dissertations, gray literature

Open Access: articles freely available through Internet Authors retain copyright: grant rights to disseminate Expands access to research University IRs promote institution and its faculty rather than

journal/publisher

University based IRs

DSpace MIT <www.dspace.org> Preserve MIT’s intellectual output -- joined by Columbia,

Cornell, Ohio State, Universities of Rochester, Toronto, and Washington

DSpace Ohio State <www.dspace.lib.ohio-state.edu> University of California e-schlorship

<http://escholarship.cdlib.org> Caltech CODA <http://library.caltech.edu/digital> Florida State University <http://dscholarship.lib.fsu.edu/> Virginia Tech <http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/faculty_archives/> ARNO – Academic Research, Netherlands Online

<http://www.uba.uva.nl/>

Non-University based IRs

PLoS - Public Library of Science (PLoS) <www.publiclibraryofscience.org>

PubMed Central <www.pubmedcentral.gov>

Sponsored by NIH, hosted by NLM Budapest Open Archive Initiative

<http://www.soros.org/openaccess/>

A hybrid modelhybrid model in scholarly communication

PublisherPublisherManuscript

Tomorrow’s (today’s at BioMed Central) online-based model:

Everyone has accessAll use is fair use

Result:

$Author pays small amount of money

or rather, institution pays on author’s behalf

OPEN@CCESS

BioMed Central Advantages Launched May 2000 First commercial publisher (Current Science Group) 90+ biomed journals Reverse business model

removes subscription charges to viewers author $500 fee or institution annual fee of $7,750

Authors retain copyright Secure archiving Searchable/retrievable: PubMed, Biosis, CAS, etc. Online system for submission, peer reviewed Average time of publication 7 weeks – published same day accepted No page constraints “Start a new journal” program -- 24 editorial groups, 26 more to launch

2003 ImagesMD – create own image library Faculty of 1000 – scan & highlight most important papers

Biology

Biochemistry Bioinformatics Biotechnology Cell biology Chemical Biology Developmental Biology Ecology Evolutionary Biology Genetics Genomics Immunology Microbiology Molecular Biology Neuroscience Pharmacology Plant biology Structural Biology

The BMC Collection

Medicine

Anesthesiology Blood Disorders Cancer Cardiovascular Disorders Clinical Pathology Clinical Pharmacology Complementary and

Alternative Medicine Dermatology Ear, Nose and Throat Disorders Emergency Medicine Endocrine Disorders Family practice Gastroenterology Geriatrics Health Service Research Infectious diseases International Health and Human Rights Medical Education Medical Ethics Medical Genetics

•Medical Imaging•Medical Informatics and Decision Making•Medical Research Methodology •Musculoskeletal Disorders•Nephrology•Neurology•Nuclear Medicine•Nursing•Oncology•Ophthalmology•Oral Health•Palliative Care•Pediatrics•Pregnancy and Childbirth•Psychiatry•Public Health•Pulmonary Medicine •Surgery•Urology

Examples of new journals published by BioMed Central

Citation/ IndexingThe following journals are being tracked by ISI for impact factors – some already have them

Arthritis Research & Therapy impact factor: 3.44BMC Bioinformatics BMC Cancer impact factor: 1.05BMC Cell BiologyBMC GastroenterologyBMC Genetics BMC GenomicsBMC Health Services ResearchBMC Infectious Diseases impact factor: 0.96 BMC MicrobiologyBMC Molecular Biology BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders BMC Public Health impact factor: 0.29Breast Cancer Research impact factor: 2.81Critical Care impact factor: 0.88Current Controlled Trials in Cardiovascular MedicineGenome BiologyMalaria JournalRespiratory Research

PubMed / MEDLINE All journals are included in PubMed and the following are in MEDLINE as well

Arthritis Research & Therapy BMC Biochemistry BMC Cancer BMC Cell Biology BMC Gastroenterology BMC Genetics BMC Health Sciences Research BMC Infectious Diseases BMC Microbiology BMC Neuroscience BMC Public Health Breast Cancer Research Critical Care Current Controlled Trials    in Cardiovascular Medicine Genome Biology Respiratory Research

BioMed Central’s members include:

NHS England All Universities in the UK Cancer Research UK Harvard University, USA The NIH of the US Princeton University, USA University of California (all

campuses) Yale University, USA Lund University, Sweden Max Plank Society, Germany

World Health Organization, Switzerland

L’Institut Pasteur, France CNRS, France INSERM, France La Sapienza, Italy McMaster University,

Canada University of Toronto,

Canada Kyoto University, Japan and more………

BioMed Central Health Sciences Library Activities

Contact UNC faculty published in BMC Identify, contact journal editors in Health Affairs

to assess interest Define HSL’s role in promoting BioMed Central

– pay $7,000 annual fee? Recognition of faculty’s

patterns of professional recognition, career advancement, tenure

perceptions may vary depending on discipline

Will we see a change in the scholarly communication process?

SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition <www.arl.org/sparc>

Duke, NC State, NC Central, and UNC-CH (TRLN) major sponsor International alliance 200+ college & research libraries “constructive response to market dysfunctions in scholarly

communication system…[which has] reduced dissemination of scholarship & crippled libraries… serves as a catalyst for action”

Create Change www.createchange.org (handout)

Source of information on Institutional Repositories Sponsored by ARLs, ACRLs, Sparc

Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Ageby Clifford A. Lynch, Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information ARL Bimonthly Report 226 February 2003

institutional repositories can facilitate greatly enhanced access to traditional scholarly content by empowering faculty

occurring on a disciplinary basis through the development of e-print and preprint servers, in some disciplines

where disciplinary practice is ready, institutional repositories can feed disciplinary repositories directly

where the disciplinary culture is more conservative, where scholarly societies or key journals choose to hold back change, institutional repositories can help individual faculty take the lead in initiating shifts in disciplinary practice