CREATING CHANGE IN EUROPE : SPARC EUROPE AND SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING

Frederick J. FriendDirector Scholarly CommunicationUniversity College Londonf.friend@ucl.ac.ukwww.ucl.ac.uk/scholarly-communicationwww.sparceurope.org/

WHY CHANGE?

Rise in journal prices restricting access to scholarship (N.B. “Big Deals” only improve access to the titles included).

Access restricted not only for scientific and medical users but also for humanities and social sciences as journal publishers use higher proportion of budgets

Small publishers threatened by dominance of major publishers Future access uncertain because dependent upon publishers’

archiving and pricing policies Access restricted across the globe : a problem for rich and poor

countries alike Restricted access works against world-wide growing need for

information as the driver for economic and social development

THE EFFECT OF JOURNAL PRICE RISES IN US AND UK

THE VISION

“An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment, for the sake of inquiry and knowledge. The new technology is the internet. The public good they make possible is the world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-reviewed journal literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds. Removing access barriers to this literature will accelerate research, enrich education, share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich, make this literature as useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge.” Budapest Open Access Initiative http://www.soros.org/openaccess/

WHO CAN MAKE THIS VISION A REALITY?

We can! Librarians alone cannot do everything, but librarians can

form partnerships with academic authors, users and publishers.

Many authors and users are feeling the bad effects of the present scholarly publishing situation and are looking for better access to information.

Many publishers are worried about the sustainability of the present economic model and are looking for new economic models which will enable them to stay in business.

Partnership is the key to open up change: both SPARC and OSI work with publishers

Publishers can change and survive (so can librarians!)

LOOKING FOR A BETTER WAY…...

Library consortia : achieve wider access to big packages of journals

E-print services : successful for research literature in some subjects

Open Archives Initiative : harvesting metadata in order to improve access

Public Library of Science : author power Budapest Open Access Initiative : funding to achieve change

through author-archiving or alternative journals SPARC : Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources

Initiative www.arl.org/sparc/: particular contribution to create change is to raise awareness and promote alternative journals and business models

SPARC: LINKING ADVOCACY AND ACTION

Aid editors, societies, universities

Build capacity

SPARC PUBLISHING INITIATIVES

Reduce startup risk

Enhance awareness

Promote action options

SPARC ADVOCACY

Demonstrate success

SPARC ALTERNATIVE JOURNALS CAN SAVE LIBRARIES MONEY WITHOUT SACRIFICING QUALITY

Title Price Title PriceTopology & Its Applications

$2,672 Algebraic and Geometric Topology

Free $2,672

Journal of Crystal Growth

$9,220 Crystal Growth & Design

$1,781 $7,439

Evolutionary Ecology (price reduced in 2001)

$467 Evolutionary Ecology Research

$340 $127

Topology $1,303 Geometry & Topology

Free $1,303

Organic Geochemistry

$2,513 Geochemical Transactions

$100 $2,413

Sensors & Actuators, A & B

$5,313 IEEE Sensors Journal

$395 $4,918

Machine Learning $1,050 Jnl of Machine Learning Research

Free $1,050

Plant Ecology (formerly Vegetatio)

$2,861 Jnl of Vegetation Science

$450 $2,411

Tetrahedron Letters $9,624 Organic Letters $2,609 $7,015 Chemical Physics Letters

$10,264 PhysChemComm $100 $10,164

Jnl of Logic & Algebraic Programming

$747 Theory & Practice of Logic Programming

$300 $447

$46,034 $6,075 $39,959

SPARC EUROPE www.sparceurope.org

Supported by LIBER, JISC, CURL, SCONUL, UKB, IWI, ANKOS and a number of individual institutions

Co-operation between SPARC Washington and European organizations had grown to a high level

Meeting in London February 2001 set up SPARC Europe “SPARC Europe is an alliance of European research libraries,

library organizations and research institutions that supports increased competition in scientific journal publishing.”

“SPARC Europe will collaborate with the international SPARC organization based in Washington, DC, but will develop Europe-focused initiatives under the direction of a European managing board and a Europe-based program officer.”

SPARC EUROPE INITIATIVES (ACTION PROGRAMME ON WEB-SITE)

Raising awareness amongst academic authors and users: leaflets and workshops to stimulate thought and action

Encouraging institution-based repositories of copies of journal articles written by academic staff: “good practice” to be identified on SPARC Europe web-site

Providing information about alternative journals: links from SPARC Europe web-site

Supporting open access initiatives : Open Archives Initiative (October Workshop in Geneva) and Budapest Open Access Initiative (developing new business models).

Supporting new journals committed to low-cost or open access: encourage libraries to buy when publishers change their policies.

BEING PREPARED TO COMMIT …..

The problems in access to academic journals will not be solved unless those who are looking for change are prepared to take action.

SPARC began in the US because universities were not only prepared to talk about change but to commit money to bring about change.

In other countries, we cannot leave it to the US to take action: if we want change we have to make our own commitment of time or money.

Thank you for listening - but please take action as well as listen! Join SPARC Europe if you are not already a member, talk about these issues to your colleagues and support open access journals.