[Taxacom] Blackwell Publishing Journal News - July 2006 -Number 15 ; shut down our archives? [ Scanned for viruses ]

Tue Jul 11 14:49:43 CDT 2006

Dear Paul,

While I'd love everything to be free and open, I'm just wondering how  
realistic this is, and whether we might still gain something from the  
publishing industry's efforts. For example, Google Scholar provides a  
very useful service by indexing full journal text. We can access the  
index for free, but not (always) the content. It's still very useful.

If the digitization is of sufficient quality that useful information  
can be extracted (and Blackwell seems to be doing this, their PDF's  
are searchable and have XML metadata), then it may still be of use.  
To give a more concrete example, Springer are making more of their  
content available on line, and for some taxonomic groups such as ants  
(my model group of choice at the moment) this is great (or at least,  
better than nothing). Indeed, most hits for ants on iSpecies.org are  
Springer journals.

I guess I'm trying to suggest that seeing publishers and other  
digital providers as evil money grabbers might not always be the best  
strategy. Some are innovative and are opening up their collections in  
powerful ways (especially Ingenta - http://www.ingentaconnect.com/).  
After all, Google exists because there is a market, not (simply)  
because its founders have a noble goal. Like the music industry, I  
guess publishers are struggling to find the appropriate business  
model for the Internet age.

Regards

Rod

On 11 Jul 2006, at 18:02, Paul Kirk wrote:

> A bit naive perhaps Rod.
>
> The tools we develop and the resources we put together (etc, etc)  
> are paid for (so there is a cost) but then the products are free to  
> the end user on a non-commercial (whatever that menas) basis. The  
> JSTOR/Blackwell/Elsevier etc model is that someone pays for the  
> information/knowledge to be generated (national and international  
> sources of funding - sensu lato), it's 'handed' to a publisher, who  
> then charges for access ... on a business model developed in the  
> 'ink on paper' era which doesn't work too well in the 'click and  
> it's there' era. Most commercial digitizing is done on a 'never  
> mind the quality feel the width' basis - nobody is going to pay  
> directly for a bit of information generated two centuries ago on an  
> obscure organism in a small journal but if it's part of a vast  
> archive it may suck in users and generate some useful links from  
> 'lateral' searching which can be charged for ...
>
> perhaps I'm being naive now ... ;-)
>
> Paul
> Mycologist (www.indexfungorum.org)
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu on behalf of Roderic Page
> Sent: Tue 11/07/2006 17:38
> To: 'TAXACOM'
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Blackwell Publishing Journal News - July  
> 2006 -Number 15 ; shut down our archives? [ Scanned for viruses ]
>
>
>
> I'm not totally sure why this is a bad thing. Everything costs money,
> the issue is who pays and how. Nothing is ever "free" (as in beer).
> Open Access s in no way free. Somebody, somewhere, always pays.
>
> If publishers feel there is value in digitizing old literature,
> surely we should encourage this. Instead of "us and them", what about
> pursing a strategy where the taxonomic community makes the case that
> it can add value to this material, not only through mark up but
> through increasing findability. I'd argue that if we can show that
> tools we develop will increase access to publisher's holdings, they'd
> see a reason for supporting our efforts.
>
> Nor do I see why this undermines BHL.
>
> Maybe I'm being dense or naive...
>
> Regards
>
> Rod
>
> On 11 Jul 2006, at 12:42, Donat Agosti wrote:
>
>> Please check out this release by Blackwell regarding open access.
>>
>> As much as it is advantageous to have more and more digital
>> journals, the
>> more the divide between those having something and those having
>> nothing
>> widens, since hardly any of the content is free. Furhtermore,
>> having access
>> to 3,000 years of journals means, that in fact Blackwell opened for
>> themselves another stream of income, this time not claiming
>> copyright but
>> the effort spent to digitize the content. In fact, this has the
>> same effect
>> as copyright.
>>
>> Since Blackwell asks individual societies for paying the costs of
>> scanning,
>> if they want to have their journals open access, one could argue at
>> the same
>> time, that Blackwell ought to pay each society a royalty if they
>> sell an
>> article. All the content has not been generated by Blackwell, and
>> thus this
>> is not a fair deal. It might be there is more language hidden in
>> contracts,
>> but this is not to be found in the release below.
>>
>> I would also argue, that this development is undermining the
>> success of the
>> Biodiversity Heritage Library.
>>
>> Finally, the advantage of open access is only on a very short time
>> access to
>> pdfs: the real impact will yield tools such as open text mining,
>> which are
>> prevented by Blackwell's behavior.
>>
>> An additional comment regarding open access is on
>> http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html
>>
>> Donat Agosti
>>
>>
>> ------------------
>> BLACKWELL PUBLISHING JOURNAL NEWS
>> July 2006 - Number 15
>>
>> Bookmark the Journal News website:
>> http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journalnews
>>
>> To download the entire July issue as a PDF for printing, click here
>>
>>
>> Editorial
>>
>> The open access interest is now focused on mandated posting of
>> articles on
>> Institutional and Subject Repositories and we have reported
>> developments in
>> the United States and UK.  The Online Open trial which now covers 98
>> journals is attracting around 8-10 articles a month.
>>
>> The other main news this month is the launch of our Journal
>> Digitization
>> Program. The first 158 journals in the program represent 2.6
>> million pages
>> and almost 3000 years of content.  We shall be reporting on the
>> expected
>> increased usage of these titles.
>>
>> There are also descriptions of our new services for authors and
>> editors, and
>> the Blackwell Executive Seminars.  We have run five of these
>> seminars, aimed
>> at journal editors and society executives, in the United States and
>> are now
>> extending the series to Europe.  Spaces are still available for the
>> seminar
>> to be held in London in September.
>>
>> Bob Campbell
>> President, Blackwell Publishing
>>
>>
>> Contents of this issue:
>>
>> The UK Research Councils Break Ranks
>> Research Councils issue their own policies on OA.
>>
>> Where Next for the NIH's Public Access Stance?
>> NIH debates recommending versus mandating.
>>
>> Blackwell Launches 3000 Years of Digitized Journal Backfiles
>> 158 journal backfiles are now available and orders are already
>> coming in.
>>
>> Funding and Bureaucracy, not Access to Journals, are Chief
>> Obstacles to
>> Scientific Productivity
>> New study finds that the culture of research funding is the main
>> block to
>> science.
>>
>> Impact of Self-Archiving on Subscriptions
>> Institutional and subject repositories not yet replacing library
>> journal
>> collections.
>>
>> Impact Factors 2005 Released
>> 2005 Impact Factors look good but must be interpreted with caution.
>>
>> Annual Seminar of the Committee on Publication Ethics
>> Committee aims to provide practical advice to scientific editors.
>>
>> New CME Accreditation for Medical Journals
>> Continuing Medical Education credits offered for a selection of
>> journals.
>>
>> Extended Online Services for Authors and Editors
>> Online tracking of articles extended to journal editors.
>>
>> Providing an Exemplary Publishing Experience for Authors
>> Overview of the services and surveys offered for authors.
>>
>> Blackwell Executive and Editorial Seminars
>> Strategy seminars held in Europe for the first time this year.
>>
>>
>> Dr. Donat Agosti
>> Science Consultant
>> Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History and
>> Naturmuseum der
>> Burgergemeinde Bern
>> Email: agosti at amnh.org
>> Web: http://antbase.org
>> Blog: http://biodivcontext.blogspot.com/
>> Skype: agostileu
>> CV: http://antbase.org/agosticv_2003.html
>> Dalmaziquai 45
>> 3005 Bern
>> Switzerland
>> +41-31-351 7152
>>
>>
>>
>>
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