COLLOQUY

THE QUESTION

RESPONSES

BACKGROUND

The most basic flaw is the blithe assertion that there is some "system" that needs reform or change, and what is offered instead is a reinvention without advantage. I briefly cover here only four or five issues, but I believe the whole sense of my concerns will be clear.

Copyright and Publishing

A fatuous "distinction" has some currency, i.e. "posting" is not publishing. A similarly silly notion is also abroad, viz. we can easily replicate the review and editorial functions of commercial journals. Why otherwise intelligent persons would adopt these beliefs cannot be explained by facts.

Under U.S. law and international treaties, copyright of a covered work is owned by its author(s), unless otherwise assigned. Accordingly, an author may publish by whatever means or methods seem best. There are several categories from which to choose: house organs of scholarly societies, commercially-developed journals, and university presses are among them. To my knowledge, all traditionally require assignment of copyright for what are ordinarily characterized as scholarly research articles. Thus, colleges and universities are already in the business of requiring assignment of copyright, as are commercial publishers and others. I also sense an undercurrent - jealousy of journals that recover profit above their costs. Colleges and universities are quite rabid of late in their desire to "profit" from the intellectual work of their faculty, ordinarily via so-called "technology transfer" agreements. This smells like the next wave.

Our new publishers

In the U.S. alone there are several thousand college and university campuses. Are they each, or in consortia, to replace the current publishing establishment with new mechanisms for publication and online content provision? Will there be an Ivy League Social Science consortium? Will hard science at Princeton be in a different consortium? The migration to metadata cataloging may render such distinctions less relevant, but who will bear the costs of referrals to referees, editing, html conversion, and so forth? Anyone with the slightest acquaintance of scholarly journal publishing knows the cost in administrative FTE (apart from others) which must be obligated to such an enterprise.

Discretion of authors to publish

I welcome the technological advances which have brought access to scholarly scientific and medical journals directly to the computer desktops of my users. I despise some attempts by publishers and content providers to "herd" libraries, wittingly or no, into consortia. I welcome the alternatives which have and are developing, particularly electronic preprints and web-only journals. I despise the attempts to require special libraries to purchase whole catalogs of journals when what is wanted is access to a few. What is being offered is retention of putative copyright by authors who then are to be published by their own institutions. The author of a copyright protected work ought to have discretion as to where the work is to be submitted for publication.

Linchpins

How can we sort this out? Just compensation for useful contributions is the due of publishers and content providers in the marketplace. Extortionate profits, or profits on content not desired but which buyers are compelled to take, is not due. Copyright is not the linchpin. Critical serials acquisition is the linchpin if anything is. Acquire those journals which treat contributors and readers fairly, and abandon the others.

The assumption that the evil publishers will be overcome by the not merely benign but truly beatific, not only caring but munificent, even generous, set of university administrators currently at loose in the land is absurd. Keep your hands on your manuscripts, and settle money issues as money issues, not as trumped-up copyright issues. If authors want more cash, sell where Mammon is found. I do not think, however, that coin is the currency desired by authors. It is, please note, the one desired by administrators.

Finally, and purely as an humorous commentary, I would remind all readers that a provost has a traditional, disciplinary role, one I would not want burdened by the additional duties of publisher.

-- Lance Sultzbaugh, Research Librarian, Elan Pharmaceuticals (posted 9/15, 9:55 p.m., E.D.T.)

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