Scholarly publishing is in a dysfunctional state. Journal costs have risen 40 percent in the last five years. The prices have become so onerous that libraries cannot afford to maintain all the subscriptions that professors and students need. Even while cutting journals, libraries must generate more income from student fees to maintain expensive subscriptions.
UNL Libraries spend about $5.5 million a year on serials (journals) compared to about $500,000 on monographs (books). Last year the library was forced to cut almost 3,400 serials, in order to save one million dollars.
Despite the astounding inflation in subscription costs for journals, authors have received no extra profit. In fact, neither professors nor the institutions that support them typically receive any compensation for submitting or peer-reviewing journal articles. Those reaping rewards from overpriced journals are the publishers, and they do little more than coordinate and print the efforts of professors.
Historically, this model made sense. Before the Internet, authors were forced to rely on publishers to spread their ideas. The value for professors comes in the potential for career advancement by being widely read, cited and discussed. In return authors would often transfer their rights to an article so that publishers could be compensated for publicizing the work. The transfer offered publishers absolute control over the use and distribution of published articles.
However, this system has never been truly fair to universities. In addition to paying journal subscription fees, those who employ the professors subsidize scholarly research by paying professor salaries, research assistants and laboratory costs. Thus, universities are paying for the talent as well as the final product. However, the price for that final product may include a hefty profit for the middle-man (some publishers reportedly maintain up to forty percent profit margins).
The only way to correct this broken system is to embrace an alternative to the traditional academic publishing model. Open Access (OA) seeks to do so by making scientific and scholarly information freely available for the public to access, read and use as they see fit. Most examples of OA exist on the Internet because of the low cost of publishing. Examples include a journal publishing issues online or a professor posting an archive of journal articles on her university website. OA removes price barriers (e.g. subscription costs) and permission barriers (e.g. copyright and licensing). Moreover, OA is totally compatible with the traditional peer review process.
A prime case for making academic research open access occurs when that research is funded by public money. It seems obvious that the public deserve access to the results of research they sponsor. In addition, it is in the best interest of professors to make all research available to the largest audience possible. Professors create research to spread knowledge and make an impact. Such information should never be locked down by parties holding purely commercial interests.
Authors of scholarly articles are ideally positioned to usher in OA by publishing work in OA journals that are freely available. Even if authors choose to publish in traditional (i.e. non-OA) journals, they can still make their work available to the public by depositing it in searchable, institutional repositories. However, if they do not pay attention to the contracts they sign with publishers they are likely transferring their rights to an entity that then controls the published work.
OA is gaining momentum in the U.S. Last year, Students for Free Culture held a "National Day of Action" to promote open access. In the months following, two major breakthroughs occurred: First, the National Institute of Health (NIH), the world's largest sponsor of non-classified scientific research mandated that projects funded with its money must be allowed to be distributed under open access. Second, Harvard College of Arts and Sciences followed by Harvard Law School implemented a policy that automatically made scholarly articles OA, unless a professor specifically chooses not to do so.
This University needs to adopt a policy to require, at the very least, that faculty deposit their publications - research sponsored by the university and public funds - in an institutional repository where anyone can have access. The University can facilitate such a policy by setting expectations, educating and assisting professors in how to archive their work. The necessary pieces are already in place; without any official stance on archiving university research, UNL has established the fourth largest university repository in the nation (DigitalCommons@UNL). It is time to take the next step and embrace open access as an institution.
UNL describes its three primary missions as teaching, research and service. UNL's mission statement further states, "[t]he university recognizes its obligation to extend the resources of the university beyond the campus and throughout the State. … UNL must be visionary in its planning and must help the citizens of the state prepare for the future as well as deal with the present." OA has the potential not only to benefit the University and its professors but also spread knowledge outside the walled garden. The University of Nebraska must seriously consider its responsibility to spread knowledge for the good of the public. This responsibility tied with an unsustainable publishing system signal the need for change.
A move to embrace OA would serve as a continuation of the pioneering spirit that has always defined this University.
To learn more about OA, join us at the UNL Open Access Day program tonight starting at 5:30 p.m. in Library 110, or check out the Free Culture @ UNL Web site: http://unlfreeculture.org.
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