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March 23, 2004

Limited open access

From InfoToday (by Barbara Quint):

Sci-Tech Not-For-Profit Publishers Commit to Limited Open Access

� Forty-eight of the nation�s and the world�s top medical and scientific societies and not-for-profit scholarly publishers have signed the �Washington DC Principles for Free Access to Science� (http://www.dcprinciples.org), a statement proclaiming their commitment to providing free access and wide dissemination of published research findings. The announcement declared that the DC Principles represent a �needed �middle ground� in the increasingly heated debate between those who advocate immediate unfettered online access to medical and scientific research findings and advocates of the current journal publishing system.� The press release announcing the statement indicated that the societies signing the DC Principles represent over 600,000 scientist and clinician members and publish over 380 journals. A closer look revealed that the journal titles held by publisher signatories totaled 115 and all signatories were currently hosted on HighWire Press, a Web-based hosting service for academic publishers from Stanford University (http://highwire.stanford.edu).

Drafted over the past year in discussions initiated at meetings of HighWire Press publishers, the DC Principles are a response to charges that current publisher practices impede access to published scientific research. According to Lenne Miller, senior director of publications at the Endocrine Society and active member of the DC Principles organization, the initiative began as an attempt to counter the Public Library of Science�s open access advocacy, which had �tarred scholarly society publishers with the same brush as commercial publishers.�

...

Librarian associations responded quickly to the statement, praising the signatories. The Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL), American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), American Library Association (ALA), Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Medical Library Association (MLA), Open Society Institute (OSI), Public Knowledge, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), and SPARC Europe issued a joint statement. It applauded the publishers signing the DC Principles �for their commitment to free access to peer-reviewed research literature where they conclude it is feasible.� (The press release and statement are available at: http://www.arl.org/sparc/.)

Hmmm ... I wonder why SLA is not mentioned above. Then again, I don't know SLA's official position on open access. Hmmm ... something to investigate. Later.

Posted by misseli at March 23, 2004 09:36 AM

Comments

SLA wasn't a signatory for that particular statement. That's not unusual: While SLA turns up on some library-association joint initiatives, it doesn't on others.

(SLA is one of the parties in ALA's appeal of the Broadcast Flag, for example.)

Do let us know if you're able to determine whether SLA actually has an official position on open access. I didn't find one in the two or three minutes I spent at the site. Doesn't mean it isn't there, to be sure!

Posted by: Walt Crawford at March 23, 2004 01:34 PM

You're right, there are tons of library issues out there that SLA doesn't take action on.

However, there is a significant number of academic librarians in SLA ... and even many corporate and government libraries are consumers in the STM market. I would think it's an issue that has the attention of the membership.

Maybe it's a political thing ...

Posted by: misseli at March 23, 2004 04:29 PM

I suspect the reason the SLA does not go along with many of the positions taken by other library associations is because the SLs in the SLA are, well, S. My impression (though perhaps it is a misimpression, and I would happily be corrected) is that the SLA, to a much greater degree than other library associations, has among its membership many "libraries" without a strong and direct public service mission.

For example, I think of the SLA as the place where you're likely to find librarians who work at libraries in law firms, brokerages, news outlets, and so forth (of course they may also appear at ALA or other associations, but not in the same proportion). Not to say that at least some of those don't ultimately have the public interest at heart, but they are a far cry from public, school, or academic libraries in terms of their openness to broad communities.

That may go some way in explaining why SLA isn't always on board with positions taken by the other prominent library associations. Again, however, if I am wrong about my vague understanding of SLA, I'd be happy to hear another opinion.

Posted by: Frederick Emrich at March 31, 2004 08:31 AM

Your general take on SLA is dead-on. Some issues (like filtering) just don't apply to most special libraries. But there's a lot of issues that people think don't apply to special libraries, but they do -- like Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and disappearing government websites.

I have a follow-up post on this, but I'm rather hip-deep in APA citations for LISNews.com, so it'll have to wait till next week.

Posted by: misseli at March 31, 2004 09:44 AM