Scholarly Communication

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SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING ACADEMIC RESOURCES
COALITION An initiative of the Association of
Research Libraries

• Scholarly Communication
• Today
• Whats Wrong and
• What Together We Can Do About It
• David Kohl Dean University Librarian
  University of Cincinnati
• Open Meeting on SPARC February 21, 2001 London

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Scholarly Communication Crisis

• Faculty and students need greater access than
  ever before to journal literature
• Libraries almost universally are being forced to
  reduce access to journals
• Even monographic acquisitions have suffered

We are spending more money but getting fewer
books and journals
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Immediate Cause

• For almost two decades, journal costs have far
  outpaced inflation
• Primarily commercial publishers
• Particularly STM journals

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(No Transcript)
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Scholarly Communication Impeded
Prices are high and rising...
Examples
For a list of 100 of the most expensive journals
(including 4-year price trend and editors), see
www.createchange.org/resources/journal.html
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Underlying Causes

• Academy has lost control of scholarly publishing
• Academic publishing is now big business
• Commercial publishers dominate the market
• Focus of academic publishing has shifted from
  scholarly communication to generating profits

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Early Days of Happy Innocence

• For 300 years, scientific communications was a
  community enterprise
• Scientists organized themselves in societies to
• Share ideas with colleagues (e.g., conferences)
• Verify the quality
• of work (peer review)
• Disseminate new
• ideas (e.g., publishing)

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Traditional Role of Libraries

• Organize knowledge
• Help scholars know what work has already been
  done
• Overcome inability of individuals to collect all
  published works
• Distribute information to a wide range of users

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Traditional Knowledge Exchange
LEARNED SOCIETY
LIBRARY
AUTHOR
READER
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The Roots of Dysfunction

• Beginning after World War II
• higher education enrollments grew
• expanded funding flowed into academe
• faculty size increased
• quantity of research increased
• demand for publication increased
• to disseminate research
• to obtain tenure promotion
• to compete for grants

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The Fall

• Society publishers failed to meet demand
• insufficient publishing capacity
• unwillingness or inability to expand
• Commercial publishers entered market
• many existing journals outsourced by societies
  journal size expanded
• new journals started to accommodate growth
• - growing quantity of research
• - new increasingly specialized domains
  (twigging)

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Clash of Cultures

• Goal
• Strategy
• Reward

• Scholarship
• wide distribu-tion of work
• publish
• reputation, tenure, promotion

Commerce maximize share-holder value control
info access price increased financial return
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Scientific Publishing Today
Source Outsell Inc.
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Library Strategies

• Journal cancellations reduced monograph
  acquisitions
• Purchase by the drink rather than by
  subscription
• Cooperative collection development and consortial
  purchase
• Site licensing of electronic information

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The Fundamental Problem Remains

• How to restore journal publishing to its primary
  academic purpose
• Reasonable pricing
• Focus on scholarly communication rather than
  profits
• Active exploration of the possibilities of new
  technologies to enhance scholarly communication
• Consciousness-raising within the academic
  community

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In Other Words

• Dont get better at the game,
• Change the Rules of the game!

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How to Accomplish Fundamental Change

• The North American research library community
  began to discuss this issue in the biannual ARL
  meetings of the mid/late 90s
• Out of a series of internal discussions a
  consensus arose that we would use our buying
  power to actively intervene in and change the
  direction and nature of academic publishing

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Four Things Were Necessary

• Core group of libraries representing a
  significant market share who would act together
• War Chest
• Action organization
• Staff
• (A sexy name for the organization is optional)

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Core Group

• The obvious core group for North America were the
  ARL libraries
• Voluntary association (peer pressure)
• Provided foundation and visibility
• Founding group 81 libraries 500M purchasing
• Then membership opened up to the broader academic
  library community
• Membership options broadened as well
• Currently 200 members
• Finally, developing cognate organizations
  worldwide

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War Chest

• Upfront money necessary
• Encourage competitive publishing
• New journals
• New models
• New technologies
• Pay for staff and organizational costs
• Each ARL member paid 5000/year
• Upfront commitment necessary
• Moral commitment to purchase SPARC supported
  journals (a minimum of a specific amount each
  year)

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Action Organization

• Separate organization established
• Distinct identity, purpose and focus
• Higher visibility
• Action agenda
• Interlocking arrangements
• Promote communication and joint action
• E.g. SPARC Board has strong ARL presence
• Practical cost savings and synergies
• E.g. SPARC housed at ARL and hosted on ARL website

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SPARC Staff

• Enterprise Director, Rick Johnson, was hired
  first in June 1998
• Communications Officer, Alison Buckholtz, hired
  in January 1999
• Part-time Public Programs Officer (campus
  programs liaison/speakers bureau coordinator),
  Julia Blixrud, retained in August 1999
• Business Development Officer, Dr. Elisabeth
  Lutanie, hired November 2000

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SPARC Agenda

• Promoting lower cost, competitive journals
• Preserving scholarly society role in publishing
• Enhancing scholars role in exploring new
  communications technologies and communities
• Raising academic consciousness on publishing
  issues and solutions

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Create Change!
New York Times Although the battle is being
fought over subscription prices, what is really
at stake...is the scientific process itself.
Dec. 8, 1998

• SPARC
• The Scholarly Publishing
• Academic Resources Coalition
• 21 Dupont Circle, NW
• Washington, DC 20036
• E-mail sparc_at_arl.org
• Tel [phone]
• Fax [phone]

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So What Has SPARC Done? And Where Is It Headed
Now?
Rick Johnson Enterprise Director, SPARC