[Taxacom] Open Access taxonomy

Wed May 25 14:43:37 CDT 2011

"It seems that
scientists do not take personal responsibility for calculating the
costs of their publishing decisions while sitting behind their
computer monitors."

With increasing job-insecurity, short-term contracts, tenured positions fading away, and, on the other hand, increasing reliance of administrators and auditors on metrics (Journal Impact Factor) or at least on where something is published (the "leading" journals) it is clear how publishing decisions are made: Go to the 'best' possible journals, i.e. the ones with the highest impact factor or the highest prestige. The majority of such journals are published by commercial publishers.

Not many scientists have the luxury to think about availability of their work, or the financial situation of libraries, or any other rational or philanthropic questions. They have to think about their next review.
Even if they enjoy the luxury of a permanent or tenured position, it seems to be the norm to go with the flow: It is expected to publish in prestigious, established journals. Oneself is proud to have a paper in Nature or Systematic Entomology, more so than in an innovative journal like ZooKeys. A lot has to change in the sociology of academia to get out of this vicious circle.

Frank

Dr Frank T. Krell 
Curator of Entomology 
Commissioner, International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
Chair, ICZN ZooBank Committee
Department of Zoology 
Denver Museum of Nature & Science 
2001 Colorado Boulevard 
Denver, CO 80205-5798 USA 
Frank.Krell at dmns.org 
Phone: (+1) (303) 370-8244 
Fax: (+1) (303) 331-6492 
http://www.dmns.org/science/museum-scientists/frank-krell
lab page: http://www.dmns.org/krell-lab

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Bryan
Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 12:15 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Open Access taxonomy

I agree with everyone's point of view in this thread to different
degrees but I need to point out the perspective of the library.
Subscription costs have far outpaced inflation for decades. Ah for the
good old days when library subscriptions were affordable. Since
information consumers are inoculated from the costs of the journals
they are inelastic and can rise disproportionately to value.
Researchers expect to be able to just go to the library and the
journals will be there "for free" and librarians have not been able to
control subscription costs.

I do not intend to single out Elsevier but this was the first open
access reference I found and I do not mind singling out Elsevier since
they are so large. The following scenario repeats across the
publishing industry for all libraries.

"The first round of big deal contracts with Elsevier were signed
shortly before the turn of the millennium. As these contracts expired,
the big deals were not as compelling a bargain as they had been when
first signed. The 7% compounded annual increase built into these
five-year contracts meant a 40% increase in the subscription price
over the life of the contract. Over the same period, from 1999-2004,
the US consumer price index rose by only 13%."
Theodore Bergstrom, Librarians and the terrible fix: economics of the
big deal. Serials: The Journal for the Serials Community. Volume 23,
Number 2 / July 2010. Pages: 77 - 82.
http://uksg.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&issn=0953-0460&volume=23&issue=2&spage=77

The subscription model is not broken or the publishers. I became
depressed for several days a couple of years ago when I met a
publisher in a state park in his 80ft air conditioned RV with foldaway
bar and nice scotch.. or so it seemed 80ft from my tent. The owner was
retired at age 50 after spending 15 years in publishing scientific
journals. He did share his scotch. The subscription model is not
obviously broken for researchers because they can "just" go to the
library and get the materials for free. We need publishing
alternatives if for no other reason than to put downward price
pressure on the publishers but that will only work if scientists
choose to publish is the more cost effective journals. It seems that
scientists do not take personal responsibility for calculating the
costs of their publishing decisions while sitting behind their
computer monitors.

Bryan Heidorn
Director, School of Information Resources and Library Science
University of Arizona
On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 9:56 AM,  <Frank.Krell at dmns.org> wrote:
> Well, isn't that the reason why we have a library system? Not each new reader has to pay to read. Yes, you need a library pass, and access to a library which has access to the literature you need. However, even when I was a school kid, I managed to get almost all the literature I needed (scientific papers, I mean), with very little investment (train tickets to the next library, interlibrary loan fees).
>
> Yes, it is much more efficient to stay glued in front of a computer screen and have everything readily on hand.
>
> And from the publisher's standpoint: The subscription model still works. For example, if I want to eat a pizza, I pay for it and get it. Oh well, this is just the 99.999% of the world outside scientific publishing...
>
> Frank
>
>
> Dr Frank T. Krell
> Curator of Entomology
> Commissioner, International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
> Chair, ICZN ZooBank Committee
> Department of Zoology
> Denver Museum of Nature & Science
> 2001 Colorado Boulevard
> Denver, CO 80205-5798 USA
> Frank.Krell at dmns.org
> Phone: (+1) (303) 370-8244
> Fax: (+1) (303) 331-6492
> http://www.dmns.org/science/museum-scientists/frank-krell
> lab page: http://www.dmns.org/krell-lab
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Roderic Page
> Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 10:39 AM
> To: Taxacom
> Cc: John Noyes
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Open Access taxonomy
>
> Dear John,
>
> Sure, there's no such thing as a free lunch. But there's an asymmetry between a one-time cost to publish, versus requiring each  new reader having to pay to read. And that's even without considering the potential for reuse that comes with (most) Open Access articles.
>
> Regards
>
> Rod
>
> On 25 May 2011, at 17:17, John Noyes wrote:
>
>> Well, I suppose it lies behind an "input" paywall (pay to publish) or
>> output paywall (pay to access) or both. You take your pick. Very few
>> "open access" publications are open and free on either or both sides of
>> the publishing spectrum. That includes Zookeys, Zootaxa, and Plos One.
>> Someone has to pay somewhere.
>>
>> John
>>
>> John Noyes
>> Scientific Associate
>> Department of Entomology
>> Natural History Museum
>> Cromwell Road
>> South Kensington
>> London SW7 5BD
>> UK
>> jsn at nhm.ac.uk
>> Tel.: +44 (0) 207 942 5594
>> Fax.: +44 (0) 207 942 5229
>>
>> Universal Chalcidoidea Database (everything you wanted to know about
>> chalcidoids and more):
>> www.nhm.ac.uk/chalcidoids
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Roderic Page
>> Sent: 25 May 2011 16:27
>> To: Taxacom
>> Subject: [Taxacom] Open Access taxonomy
>>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> At the risk of channelling Donat Agosti, I find it somewhat depressing
>> that only two of the International Institute for Species Exploration's
>> Top 10 new species for 2010 (http://species.asu.edu/Top10 ) were
>> published as Open Access articles (see
>> http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2011/05/top-ten-new-species-described-in-2010
>> .html or http://tinyurl.com/3j69cw5 ).
>>
>> Choice of where to publish is obviously influenced by several, sometimes
>> conflicting criteria, but it's a pity that so much of taxonomy's output
>> lies behind paywalls.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Rod
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------
>> Roderic Page
>> Professor of Taxonomy
>> Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
>> College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
>> Graham Kerr Building
>> University of Glasgow
>> Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
>>
>> Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
>> Tel: +44 141 330 4778
>> Fax: +44 141 330 2792
>> AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com
>> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
>> Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
>> Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
>> Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
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>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Roderic Page
> Professor of Taxonomy
> Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
> College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
> Graham Kerr Building
> University of Glasgow
> Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
>
> Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
> Tel: +44 141 330 4778
> Fax: +44 141 330 2792
> AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
> Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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>
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-- 
Bryan Heidorn
University of Arizona
http://www.sirls.arizona.edu/heidorn

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