SLA and Open Access
Caveat lector: An earlier post on the DC Principles for Free Access to Science led to a small discussion of whether the Special Libraries Association had taken (or felt obligated to take) any official position on open access. So, I asked HQ, and I got the following response.
From Doug Newcomb, Director, Public Policy -- SLA (and with his express permission):
"The release that you refer to below came from a new "Open Access Working Group" that was formed in late 2003, of which SLA was unaware. SLA is now in contact with the group, and will be in-the-loop for possible inclusion in appropriate future projects.
SLA does not have an official position statement on open access, but does touch on its essence in our Public Policy Platform. I will work with SLA's Public Policy Committee to identify if an official statement is needed to address open access.
One area that SLA has traditionally stood slightly apart from other organizations is in access to information and pricing. Many groups call for free access to information, whereas SLA has traditionally supported accessible information, but not necessarily free. It has become apparent, however, that mergers and bundling practices have made a great deal of this crucial information financially unattainable for many organizations.
To address the issue of high pricing for journals and bundling practices, SLA has been participating with IAA (Information Access Alliance). IAA is looking into a standard of antitrust review by state and federal antitrust enforcement agencies in examining merger transactions in the serials publishing industry--the core of this being high journal pricing. "
Comments
The thing with all these Open Access working groups is that they are not aggressive enough, and they are not productive. While the bigger publisher is becoming one conglomerate monster, all these groups are doing is sitting there, debating what position and policy they are going to set. They are not trying hard enough.
Before the vendors took over the publishing role, various organizations and associations were the major players in publication business. They used to more in control of what's published, and how it is priced. Now all these societies and associations are sitting around and waiting for Elsevier to drop their price. Good luck!
Posted by: Sandy | April 8, 2004 03:40 PM