"Impending crisis" in journals provision requires radical solutions
http://www.100md.com
《英国医生杂志》
The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has recommended that all UK higher education institutions establish electronic repositories where their published output can be stored and read, free of charge.
It has also recommended encouraging further experimentation with "author pays" publishing models as one radical long term solution to help improve access to scientific, technical, and medical journals.
The committee's report into scientific publishing says that a combination of high journal prices, inadequate library budgets, and ever increasing research output has led to an "impending crisis" in the United Kingdom, where academic libraries are struggling to purchase subscriptions to all the journals their readers need.
The report cites average increases in journal prices of 58% between 1998 and 2003. Dr Ian Gibson, chairman of the committee, said: "Publishers are feathering their nests with big profits while scientific journals are becoming less and less affordable."
The committee says the practice of some of the larger commercial publishers of "bundling" journals together to be sold as one product has a negative impact on smaller publishers and adversely affects purchasing choices. However, the report praises publishers for signing up to schemes such as the Health Inter-Network Access to Research Initiative (HINARI), which provide free and lower cost access to scientific publications for institutions and researchers in developing countries.
The report says that interlinked institutional electronic research repositories will prove a cost effective way of improving access to scientific publications, so long as research councils and other government funders require researchers to deposit their articles in this way.
There is "much to praise" in the author pays publishing model, says the report, but there is currently insufficient understanding of the impact of switching to this form of publishing to be able to recommend its wholesale adoption.
Currently, most journals meet their publishing costs by charging individuals or institutions subscription fees. But the author pays publishing model—as used by the open access online publishers BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science, among others—offers free access to readers while charging authors to have their articles published.(Bruno Rushforth)
It has also recommended encouraging further experimentation with "author pays" publishing models as one radical long term solution to help improve access to scientific, technical, and medical journals.
The committee's report into scientific publishing says that a combination of high journal prices, inadequate library budgets, and ever increasing research output has led to an "impending crisis" in the United Kingdom, where academic libraries are struggling to purchase subscriptions to all the journals their readers need.
The report cites average increases in journal prices of 58% between 1998 and 2003. Dr Ian Gibson, chairman of the committee, said: "Publishers are feathering their nests with big profits while scientific journals are becoming less and less affordable."
The committee says the practice of some of the larger commercial publishers of "bundling" journals together to be sold as one product has a negative impact on smaller publishers and adversely affects purchasing choices. However, the report praises publishers for signing up to schemes such as the Health Inter-Network Access to Research Initiative (HINARI), which provide free and lower cost access to scientific publications for institutions and researchers in developing countries.
The report says that interlinked institutional electronic research repositories will prove a cost effective way of improving access to scientific publications, so long as research councils and other government funders require researchers to deposit their articles in this way.
There is "much to praise" in the author pays publishing model, says the report, but there is currently insufficient understanding of the impact of switching to this form of publishing to be able to recommend its wholesale adoption.
Currently, most journals meet their publishing costs by charging individuals or institutions subscription fees. But the author pays publishing model—as used by the open access online publishers BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science, among others—offers free access to readers while charging authors to have their articles published.(Bruno Rushforth)