The Information Implosion?Scholarly Communication at the

Crossroads

Susan K. Martin, Ph.D.Visiting Program Officer for Scholarly Communication

Association of College and Research Libraries

March 20-21, 2003

New challenge:information restriction,

restraint, and exclusion

Old challenge:information explosion

The ‘library’ issue

• Journals – too expensive• Copyright – too long• Fair use – too restricted• Electronic journals – FAR more expensive

because of the ‘Big Deal’• New government information policies – too

supportive of industry at the expense of the consumer

• Private industry – too ready to implement consumer restrictions

Is it really just a ‘library’ problem?

We think not.

Your faculty are already feeling the effects of these and other issues, and you will feel them as well

We have some pictures…

Journals are too expensive

Prices of commercially published scholarly journals far outpace

normal inflationary rates

• Why? Are some publishers greedy?– Perhaps so

• Universities and their faculties have traditionally demanded access to these tools

• Faculty don’t pay for them, and librarians have until recently been superb at hiding the truth of these costs

Here is just one example….

Courtesy of Cornell University Library

 

                                             

                    

Sticker Price: $12,495.00

                                                                                                               

Cover image of the Journal of Applied Polymer Science appears with permission of the publisher.

The Big Deal is not necessarily a good deal

In 1999, the Big Deal seemed too good to be true:• All a publisher’s journals for the same

price you were previously paying for a subset

• Incremental costs for the duration of the contract, known in advance

• Little or no surcharge for the online version

• Minor penalties for cancelling print subscriptions

The economics have changed

• With the world around us changing, librarians must find ways to cut budgets

• Big Deals, often subsidized by special funds at the outset, can be afforded by few

• Usually consortia make the Big Deals– OhioLink’s 3-year contract with Elsevier costs

$21 million

The big publishers offered monolithic packages: You (the library or consortium) get all of our (the publisher's) articles in electronic form—but only if you pay us every penny you're paying now for print subscriptions, plus more, plus a guaranteed annual increment.

http://www.econtentmag.com/Magazine/Columns/02/ discontent5_02.html

While the [original] Elsevier contract was under consideration, no faculty dissent was heard. One would have thought that Elsevier was the premier publisher of premier journals. Now, as the initial three-year contract is concluding, a substantial faculty are emphasizing that Elsevier journals are the least useful in their fields.--Kent Mulliner, Ohio University, August 19, 1999

http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives /9908/msg00023.html

The terms of copyright were recently extended…

Unless this legislation is determined by the courts tobe unconstitutional… the American public will pay a heavy price in continued royalties on old works.  Moreover, the public will enjoy fewer new works because current creative authors will be denied vital pieces of our cultural heritage for use as building blocks in making new creations.  For the first time in over 200 years of copyright history in the United States, this legislation means that

NO WORKS WILL ENTER THE PUBLIC DOMAIN FOR A FULL 20 YEARS! [1]

[1] http://www.law.asu.edu/HomePages/Karjala/OpposingCopyrightExtension/what.html

Copyright

• Balance needs to be restored

• Copyright extension restricts scholarly access and knowledge creation

Fair use, so critical to the daily needs of faculty and students alike, is being severely challenged on all sides – licensing issues, P2P downloading, and the ability of the content industry to win the hearts of our elected representatives

What stands in the way of fair use?

• Court rulings

• Copyright revision

• Licensing agreements

• UCITA and shrinkwrap licenses

• Digital Millennium Copyright Act

• Fear of being sued

Fair Use

• Industry favors draconian steps– Licensing impinges on

fair use

• ALA Washington Office and higher ed pushing for fair use– DMCRA– TEACH Act

The Big Chill

• Public legislation• Private initiatives

“Bad things are happening. Real bad.”

“Worse to come.Much worse.”

Public policies that affect academic information

• Patriot Act & Son of Patriot Act

• Copyright• “Disappeared”

government information

• UCITA• Digital Millennium

Copyright Act

Patriot Act & Son of Patriot Act

• Less government accountability with Homeland Security

• But more freedom to gather information

“Under the Freedom of Information Act, I’m requesting that you disclose what you have on me in your files.”

“Disappeared” Government Information

• Taxpayers paying for information they no longer have access to

• Examples:– PubScience– Eric– Water resources

“Notice anything different?”

UCITA

• Uninformed consent (shrink wrap licenses)

• UCITA down but not defeated

• Database licenses can restrict how information is used

“I have no idea who he is. He came bundled with the software.”

Private interests

• Acquisitions and mergers of scholarly publishing

• Microsoft’s Palladium – VERY frightening

• Recording Industry Association of America – battle to squelch peer-to-peer dissemination

• Software and Information Industry Association

Private sector

• Software• Entertainment• Publishing • Monopolies and

antitrust

“This ‘digital revolution’---can we muscle in on that?”

Slippery Slope: We’ve Got to Get a Grip

• Pay-per-drink mentality– Pay to view– Pay to print– Pay to download– Restrictions on resource sharing

There IS an information explosion

• Much more on the Internet– But what is it?– What is its quality?– Has it been reviewed?

And there ARE efforts taking place to counter the effects

recounted earlier

• Open access journals• Scholarly Publishing and Academic

Resources Coalition• Public Library of Science• E-print servers• Institutional repositories• Creative Commons

These efforts are gaining ground. They need the support of university administrators – particularly those responsible for academic affairs.

SPARC

• More than two dozen new journals created as competitors to commercial publishing

• Universities are not paying vast sums to regain the knowledge that was created on their campuses initially

• Faculty need to understand the impact of this program

Open access journals

• Peer-reviewed, high quality journals

• Supported by institutions paying nominal sums for page charges

• Contents are freely available to the world at large

• Copyright is dependent on the author, not the publisher

• Competitive with commercial journals

Institutional repositories

• Mechanism by which all scholarly output from a given institution is made available and preserved

• Enables the university to better grasp the research and publishing carried out by its faculty

• Example: MIT’s d-Space; costs $285,000 annually for the entire institution

Our New Mandate:Collaborate and Communicate

What You Can Do

• Educate campus community• Encourage conversations among all stakeholders• Support open access for faculty publishing• Help legislators to understand the needs of the higher

education• Use resources (ALA Washington Office)• Embrace new models of scholarly communication• Become a player: articulate value of higher education• Keep focus on the needs of all members of the campus

community

Copyright is at a critical juncture, and universities have an extraordinary opportunity to influence the development of the law and related practices as they affect higher education. If universities fail to provide initiative on copyright issues, other parties will exert their influence to shape the law for purposes which do not necessarily advance teaching, learning, and scholarship

Consortium for Educational Technology in University Systemshttp://www.cetus.org/fair2.html

Questions?