Scientific journals are getting more and more expensive, to the point that libraries have to dramatically restrict the range of journals to which they subscribe. As a result, many scientists have trouble accessing articles that are important to their research.
As an example, here are the institutional prices of some of the most
expensive cognitive science journals1:
I have now [2007]
updated prices after a 3-year interval to observe the evolution of
prices. I have also added a few journals.
| Journal | Publisher | Price (US $) 11/07/01 |
Price (US$) 20/10/04 |
% increase in 3 years | Price (US $) 1/09/07 | % increase in 3 years | % increase in 6 years |
| Brain
and Language |
Elsevier Science | 1220 |
1419 | 16 | |||
| Brain, Behavior and Evolution | Karger | 1562 | 1622 |
4 | 2594 | 60 | 66 |
| Brain Research (combined subscription including 6 BR journals) | Elsevier Science | 17444 |
22386 |
28 | 22126 (now the 6 journals are grouped into 2) | -1 | 27 |
| Cognition | Elsevier Science | 1123 | 1289 |
15 | 1678 | 30 | 49 |
| Cognitive
Neuropsychology |
Taylor & Francis |
1032 |
1603 | 55 | |||
| Current Opinion in Neurobiology | Elsevier Science | 944 | NA |
1603 | 70 | ||
| Nature Neuroscience |
Nature
Publishing Group |
1809 |
2160 | 19 | |||
| Neuropsychologia | Elsevier Science | 2203 | 2827 |
28 | 3319 | 17 | 51 |
| Neuroreport | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins | 2406 | 3124 |
30 | 3428 | 10 | 42 |
| Neuroscience | Elsevier Science | 6270 | 8047 |
28 | 9382 | 17 | 50 |
| Trends in Cognitive Sciences | Elsevier Science | 969 | 1309 |
35 | 1622 | 24 | 67 |
| Trends in Neuroscience | Elsevier Science | 969 | 1309 |
35 | 1622 | 24 | 67 |
| Vision Research | Elsevier Science | 2666 | 3421 |
28 | 4017 | 17 | 51 |
What might the justification for such prices be? An external observer might think that the best journals are made by outstanding scientists who deserve to be paid outstanding fees. But all scientists know that the people who actually make a scientific journal, that is, the authors, the editor and the reviewers, usually don't get a cent from publishers in return for their excellent work. In the case of Cognition [up to 2006], for instance, the contribution of the publisher to the editorial process is limited to reimbursing a fraction of the costs incurred by the editorial office, and offering a free subscription to members of the editorial board. But besides that, the publisher gets the work of the editor, the editorial assistant, the editorial board, the guest reviewers and the authors entirely for free (i.e., paid by universities, etc...). The other possibility is that the publisher's work (formatting, typesetting, printing, distributing, offering reprints to authors) is itself very costly. But the mere existence of certain journals with similar characteristics as those cited above, at prices around or below US$300, with the publisher still making a fair profit, demonstrates that the prices of certain journals are inflated beyond any possible justification.
From the non-representative list above, it would seem that Elsevier Science is very remarkable in the world of scientific publishing. It appears that this remains true even when one compiles comprehensive lists of journals (see the 100 most expensive journals). Maybe part of the reason is that Reed-Elsevier is currently buying all the other publishers (Academic Press being the latest to date), thus getting closer every day to a monopolistic position. But it is also true that other large groups (Wolters Kluwer, Wiley & Sons, Blackwell, Springer-Verlag...) are fighting against Elsevier for supremacy over this lucrative market.
In summary, this situation is an absurdity from both a scientific and an economic point of view:
By maintaining prices at an outrageous level and preventing libraries from buying all the journals they find relevant, commercial publishers like those mentioned above constitute a genuine barrier to scientist's access to the scientific literature.
Moreover, they freely exploit the publicly-funded work of authors, reviewers and editors to re-sell it, with some added value, to the publicly-funded libraries. Since the price paid is substantially higher than the added value, there is good reason for research-funding institutions and, ultimately, the tax-payer, to feel cheated.
More information: the Create Change site by the Association of Research Libraries is extremely useful and detailed. There, you will find all the necessary figures to support my assertions: annual increases in subscription prices, corresponding decreases in library subscriptions, profit margins of commercial publishers, etc... Start with the overview of the issues. It also includes concrete examples of action that can be taken by librarians and scholars.
The most obvious thought that comes to mind is simply to boycott those journals whose publishers are not serving well the scientific community. However, there are several different aspects to the boycott. We all are readers, authors and reviewers at the same time (and some of us are editors), but depending on the hat we are wearing, the boycott is more or less acceptable.
As readers, we simply want to read the articles of interest to us. It would be foolish not to read them simply because they're published by Elsevier or Kluwer.
As authors, we primarily want to publish our papers in the journals that are read by the readership we are targeting, and, all things being equal, in the journals that are considered as the best. Only once these constraints are optimized, if we still have a choice between several journals, we may consider submitting our paper to the journal whose publisher has the most science-friendly policy.
As reviewers, we clearly have a choice. This point is
eloquently made by Ted Bergstrom on his
page so I won't repeat it here.
Finally, editors (who are scientists with the same interests as every other scientist) also have a choice, albeit a more difficult one. See below.
In light of the above, the boycott strategy is only half-realistic. We may therefore want to look for alternative strategies.
The most passionate advocate of this proposal is Stevan Harnad, who has been arguing for it in countless articles and mailing lists. Start with this article and follow the links if you want more. The essence of the proposal is that the Internet now provides the technical means to make one's article freely available to all. Therefore all authors should use it to self-archive their papers on the web, and make their production available to all without fee. Note that this does not imply that self-publication on the web should replace peer-reviewed publication in real journals, as Harnad makes it clear.
In addition to putting their papers on their own institutional web site, authors should also consider uploading them to electronic e-print archives. Stevan Harnad has created one for the cognitive sciences, Cogprints. This kind of centralized archive allows readers to perform searches on a single website, rather than on the whole web, thereby enormously increasing the efficiency of the search for and diffusion of papers.
One cannot fail to notice the huge conflict of interest between
authors putting their papers for free on the web, and publishers
trying to sell the same papers to libraries. So the next question
of course is:
Is it legal for an author to put his
article for free on the web? Could a publisher sue an author for
violation of copyright? The answer is: it all depends on the
copyright transfer agreement you sign.
Personnally I have always made available the final pdfs of all my published articles on my webpage
and I am still waiting for a publisher to sue me. I have never had to
regret it. On the contrary, I feel that the overall impact of my work
(as measured by citations, etc.) has been greatly increased by my
willingness to make it freely available to anybody, on a self-service
basis, without anybody having to bother asking me.
It is clear that the content of the copyright transfer agreements we customarily sign without reading is crucial! The right kind of copyright policy is one that grants authors the right to freely distribute their work for non-commercial purposes (including posting it on public web sites), the publisher retaining all commercial rights. Only this kind of policy will make the subversive proposal not subversive anymore, but simply legal.
At present, publishers vary widely in the kind of copyright policy they enforce. For instance, the American Mathematical Society and the American Physical Society already have policies that meet the above criteria (and therefore demonstrate that such a policy is viable). At the other end of the spectrum, the American Psychological Association has a strikingly backward policy! Certain commercial publishers such as Elsevier Science rank somewhat intermediate along that scale23. N.B.: the above links lead you directly to these publishers copyright transfer forms or policy statements.
Stefano Ghirlanda's Free Science Campaign aims to put pressure on publishers to adopt a science-friendly copyright policy. You are warmly invited to visit his site and support his campaign. See also the Cogprints Copyright FAQ where authors' fears of putting their papers on the web are properly dismissed, and where the APA policy is discussed.
Militate!
Many scientists are not even conscious of the issues discussed above. You can therefore help increasing our community's awareness by discussing these issues with your colleagues, editors and publishers, and by providing links from your homepage and/or signature to this page and to others providing related information.
Archive your papers on the web, both on your home institution's site and on e-prints archives such as Cogprints for the Cognitive Sciences (click here for a list of archives in all scientific domains).
Put pressure on journals, by expressing your concern regarding high subscription prices and restrictive copyright policies. Models of letters are provided on the Free Science and on the Create Change websites.
If you can't review all the papers you are sent, use subscription
price/copyright policy criteria to guide your choice of the
journals to which you give your work for free. Let journals know
about your choices by sending them
letters.
See Ted Bergstrom's
homepage.
Personally, in 2004-2008, I have declined refereeing for Cortex, Cognitive Development, Journal of Phonetics, Brain and Language, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Neuropsychologia, Speech Communication, Brain Research Bulletin, Journal of Neurolinguistics, Experimental
Brain Research, European Journal of Paediatric Neurology, Personality
and Individual Differences, Neuroscience Letters, Journal of Communication Disorders, and Cognition on
the grounds that I don't give my free work and precious time to
Elsevier Science anymore. (I remained active at Cognition for several years mainly for sentimental
reasons, but I have now resigned from the Editorial Board).
Discuss subscription price and copyright transfer issues with your publisher. Forward authors' and reviewers' opinions to the publisher.
Quit your publisher! Read the fascinating story of Michael Rosenzweig, former editor of Evolutionary Ecology, who quit Kluwer to create Evolutionary Ecology Research, with the same editorial board, authors and readers, and dividing the subscription price by almost 3!
Read a similar story about the creation of Journal of Machine Learning Research, and the resignation of 40 editorial board members of Machine Learning Journal.
This sort of initiative is supported by SPARC's Declaring Independence program.
See the Free Science and Create Change pages on what to do.
See also:
1When choices were available, I selected the US institutional price for print only version. This list is not meant to be representative; I just ran through my bookmarks and picked those above US$900. For more, the Association of Research Libraries publishes a list of the 100 most expensive journals.
2These copyright policies evolve quite rapidly under the pressure of scientists and technological advances. The Free Science site strives to maintain this information up-to-date.
3It may seem somewhat obvious that scholarly societies will be more concerned with scientists' interests than commercial publishers, although they also have revenues to protect. In this light, the attitude of the APA seems all the more inacceptable. But the APA only represents its members, so it really depends on us (you!) to have them change their policy.