Brian Simboli wrote:
(Worries that
people will merely use OAIster or google to bring up all the articles
for a given issue can be circumvented if the journal title is suppressed
in the metadata for the freely available article.)
This wouldn't help citation linking, which is already pretty patchy.
Anyway, I think you'll find autonomous services already get around
missing metadata through triangulation!
Interestingly, aren't the physics societies right now partially
committed to something like a de facto subscription overlay model, in
that many physics peer-reviewed postprints are being archived on
arxiv.org and are therefore freely accessible? Why shouldn't the physics
socieities then just directly link to the postprints at arxiv.org,
obviating the need for authors to engage in duplicative, afterglow
self-archiving efforts? Or is it the case that, if only a portion of
articles published by the physics societies have self-archived
counterparts on arxiv, the "tipping point" has not been reached yet
where it becomes not in their economic interest to allow access to a
free copy (via author self-archiving)?
I believe that some physics societies will accept *submissions* from a
pre-print server, but it's not the case that the publisher version gets
pushed back onto an e-print server (unless the author has permission and
does that himself, which I haven't noticed).
Searching for "referee" in arXiv finds only ~1000 matches, "referee or
corrected" only 37,000. So, perhaps:
1) Physicists don't need to make corrections (so only the pre-print is
arXived)
2) Only the post-refereed version gets archived
3) Physicists don't provide a comment when they do update to reflect
referee's comments
See also Alma Swan's presentation
http://www.eprints.org/jan2005/ppts/swan.ppt).
All the best,
Tim.
Alma Swan wrote:
In recent days there has been some discussion as to whether NIH's retreat
may in fact be due to a fear of adverse effects on the scholarly
publishing
industry if immediate self-archiving were to be mandated by NIH for its
grantholders
(http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/02-02-05.htm).
And, certainly, the Nature Publishing Group appears to be changing its
policy on self-archiving. It is not easy to follow NPG's arguments so far
because they are rather complicated, but it appears to be suggesting
that it
is aiding Open Access by moving from allowing immediate self-archiving by
authors in their institutional repositories to allowing it only after a
period of six months post-publication of an article. The logic of this is
not at all clear. It would be very helpful if NPG would clearly
explain the
causal inferences and its policy but one has to infer that NPG has
apprehensions about a possible adverse effect of self-archiving upon its
business.
Many publishers, particularly some learned societies, share these
apprehensions and that is perfectly understandable if they base their
view
of the future on imaginings rather than on actual evidence.
In the case of self-archiving, there is absolutely no need for this
sort of
self-terrorising. The experiment has been done and the results are
clear-cut. Fourteen years ago the arXiv was set up (www.arxiv.org). It
houses preprints and postprints in physics, predominantly in the areas of
high-energy physics, condensed matter physics and astrophysics. It is the
norm for researchers in these areas to post their articles either
before or
after refereeing to this repository. In 2003, the 421 physics journals
listed in ISI's SCI published a total of 116,723 articles. The arXiv
receives approximately 42,000 articles per annum, meaning that around a
third of all physics research articles appear not only in journals but
ALSO
in the arXiv.
Have physics publishers gone to the wall in the last 14 years? No,
and not
only have they continued to survive, they have also continued to
thrive. I
have recently asked questions about this of two of the big learned
society
publishers in physics, the American Physical Society in the US and the
Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd in the UK. There are two salient
points
to note:
1. Neither can identify any loss of subscriptions to the journals that
they
publish as a result of the arXiv.
2. Subscription attrition, where it is occurring, is the same in the
areas
that match the coverage of the arXiv as it is across any other areas of
physics that these societies publish in.
Both societies, moreover, see actual benefits for their publishing
operations arising from the existence of arXiv. The APS has "cooperated
closely with arXiv including establishing a mirror (jointly with
Brookhaven
National Laboratory)... We also revised our copyright statement to be
explicitly in favor of author self-archiving. These efforts strengthened
(rather than weakened) Physical Review D [an APS journal that covers
high-energy physics] ...I would say it is likely we maintained
subscriptions
to Physical Review D that we may otherwise have lost if we hadn't been so
pro-arXiv .."
In answer to the question "Does arXiv worry or threaten your
business?" the
APS answered: "We don't consider it a threat. We expect to continue to
have
a symbiotic relationship with arXiv. As long as peer review is valued
by the
community (and it seems to be), we will be doing peer review. While
the APS
aspires to open access and is not threatened by arXiv.org, we do have
strong
reservations about government requirements for open access."
The Institute of Physics Publishing's response was: "IOPP's experience
as a
learned society publisher illustrates the strong synergies and mutual
benefits that currently exist between major peer-reviewed journals,
such as
our Classical and Quantum Gravity, and the arXiv e-print server. Both
systems continue to serve the scientific community very effectively.
Journals act as the "brand", setting standards for scientific quality.
Our
authors and editors tell us that they value publishing in a peer-reviewed
journal because this continues as an essential requirement for
establishing
reputation and authority of the research they publish. Whilst posting an
pre-print or post-print is becoming more of an essential in some areas of
the physics community for immediate and wide dissemination, we do not see
the arXiv or repositories threatening our business."
Publishers who prefer to base their future strategies on experimental
data
rather than untested apprehensions may be heartened by these findings.
Institutions that prefer explicitly to help their researchers to
disseminate
their research results should provide archives for the purpose. And
researchers who prefer to have their results available to as many
people as
possible - WHILE STILL PUBLISHING IN JOURNALS OF THEIR CHOICE, even if
they
are subscription-based publications - should get on with self-archiving
their articles.
Alma Swan
__________________________
Alma P Swan, BSc, PhD, MBA
Director
Key Perspectives Ltd
Topsham
Devon
EX3 0EP
United Kingdom
--
Brian Simboli
Science Librarian
Library & Technology Services
E.W. Fairchild Martindale
8A East Packer Avenue
Bethlehem, PA 18015-3170
(610) 758-5003
E-mail: b...@lehigh.edu
