On January 12, 2010, an expert panel of librarians, library scientists, publishers, and university academic leaders from the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable issued a press release, calling on on federal agencies that fund research to develop and implement policies that ensure free public access to the results of the research they fund “as soon as possible after those results have been published in a peer-reviewed journal.” This panel was convened last summer by the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology, in collaboration with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

On January 15, 2010, the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) has issued their reply in their own press release. Here are my comments on some excerpts: This sounds to me like "we've reluctantly offered the wealthiest libraries in the world some third-rate access to an arbitrary subset of all the publicly funded research results, which the library users themselves have produced. We siphon off 4 billion in tax dollars annually as our personal profit and this entitles us to tell you what kind of further access you will get to your own research. At the moment, we think the kind if half-assed, technologically backwards and crippling access you have right now is good enough for you." Personally, I don't like billion-dollar corporastions which parasitize on tax funds for researchers should have any say whatsoever in how researchers get access to their own research. IMHO, if researchers are not happy with their access, publishers have a duty to make that access happen, without any further charge to increase their already sky-high profits. Once STM publishers start loosing money, I'd be willing to negotiate this situation (as is the case, for instance, with JoVE).Apparently, STM thinks posting a file to the internet is worth a 400% price hike in the last 20 years. Do these guys really believe we don't read their own financial reports? What could STM possibly do that a library couldn't for a fraction of the cost? Do they really believe they're so irreplaceable they're in any position to make such demands for taxpayer money in a time of financial crisis while they post record profits?

From their press relrease: "STM is an international association of about 100 scientific, technical, medical and scholarly publishers, collectively responsible for more than 60% of the global annual output of research articles, 55% of the active research journals and the publication of tens of thousands of print and electronic books, reference works and databases. We are the only international trade association equally representing all types of STM publishers ‐ large and small companies, not for profit organizations, learned societies, traditional, primary, secondary publishers and new entrants to global publishing."

Sometimes it's difficult to decide what bugs me more: the gall of these corporate publishers or the sheepish apathy of some of my fellow scientists with which they let themselves be suckered into this travesty of a professional service. This is such a Monty-Python-esque situation, only that nobody's laughing because we're in it, not watching.


Hat-tip: Jill.