[GOAL] 20 years of cowardice: the pathetic response of American universities to the crisis in scholarly publishing

[Michael Eisen]

from my blog: http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=105820 years of
cowardice: the pathetic response of American universities to the crisis in
scholarly publishing
By Michael Eisen <http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?author=1> | May 1, 2012

When Harvard University says it can not afford something, people notice. So
it was last month when a faculty committee examining the future of the
university’s libraries declared that the continued growth of
journal subscription fees was unsustainable, even for them. The
accompanying calls for faculty action are being hailed as a major challenge
to the traditional publishers of scholarly journals.

Would that it were so. Rather than being a watershed event in the movement
to reform scholarly publishing, the tepidness of the committee’s
recommendations <http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1052>, and the silence
of the university’s administration <http://www.harvard.edu/>, are just the
latest manifestation of the toothless response of American universities to
the “serials crisis” that has plagued libraries for decades.

Had the leaders major research universities attacked this issue head on
when the deep economic flaws in system became apparent, or if they’d showed
even an ounce of spine in the ensuing twenty or so years, the
subscription-based model that is the root of the problem would have long
ago been eliminated. The solutions have always been clear. Universities
should have stopped paying for subscriptions, forcing publishers to adopt
alternative economic models. And they should have started to reshape the
criteria for hiring, promotion and tenure, so that current and aspiring
faculty did not feel compelled to publish in journals that were bankrupting
the system. But they did neither, choosing instead to let the problem
fester. And even as cries from the library community intensify, our
universities continue to shovel billions of dollars a year to publishers
while they repeatedly fail to take the simple steps that could fix the
problem overnight.

*The roots of the serials crisis *

Virtually all of the problems in scholarly publishing stem from the simple
act, repeated millions of times a year, of a scholar signing over copyright
in their work to the journal in which their work is to appear. When they do
this they hand publishers a weapon that enables them to extract almost
unlimited amounts of money from libraries at the same research institutions
that produced the work in the first place.

The problem arises because research libraries are charged with obtaining
for scholars at their institution access to the entire scholarly output of
their colleagues. Not just the most important stuff. Not just the most
interesting stuff. Not just the most affordable stuff. ALL OF IT. And
publishers know this. So they raise prices on their existing journals. And
they launch new titles. And then they raise *their* prices.

What can libraries do? They have to subscribe to these journals. Their
clientele wants them – indeed, they need them to do their work. They can’t
cancel their subscription to Journal X in favor of the cheaper Journal Y,
because the contents of X are only available in X. Every publisher is a
monopoly selling an essential commodity. No wonder things have gotten out
of control.

And out of control they are. Expenditures on scholarly journals at American
research libraries
quadrupled<http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/arlbr249serials.pdf> from
1986 to 2005, increasing at over three times the rate of inflation. This
despite a massive reduction in costs due to a major shift towards
electronic dissemination. These rates of growth continue nearly unabated,
even in a terrible economy. (For those interested in more details, I point
you to SPARC <http://www.arl.org/sparc/index.shtml>, the Scholarly
Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, who tracks journal pricing and
revenues).

*The opportunity universities missed*

**Just as the serials crisis was hitting its stride in the mid-1990′s, fate
handed universities an out – the internet. In the early 1990′s access to
the scholarly literature almost always occurred via print journals. By the
end of the decade, virtually all scholarly journals were publishing online.

This radical transformation in how scholarly works were disseminated should
have been accompanied by a corresponding radical shift in the economics of
journal publishing. But it barely made a dent. Publishers, who were now
primarily shipping electrons instead of ink on paper, kept raising their
subscription prices as if nothing had happened. And universities let them
get away with it.

By failing to show even a hint of creativity or initiative in seizing the
opportunity presented by the internet to reshape the system of scholarly
communication in a productive way, the leaders of American universities
condemned themselves to 15 more years (and counting) of rising costs, and
decreasing value. Their inaction also cost them the chance to reclaim the
primary role they once held (through their university presses) in
communicating the output of their scholars.

But while universities did next to nothing to fix scholarly publishing,
others leapt into the fray. A new economic model, which came to be known as
“open access <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access>“, emerged as an
alternative to the subscription journals. Under open access the costs of
publishing would be bourn up front by research sponsors, with the finished
product freely available to all. In addition to the obvious good greatly
expanding the reach of the scholarly literature, open access was largely
free of the economic inefficiencies that created the serials crisis in the
first place, and enjoyed very strong support from university libraries
across the country. But despite its manifold advantages, universities as a
whole did little to help it succeed.

*The unholy alliance between journals and universities*

The biggest obstacle to the rise of open access journals was (and to a
large extent still is) the major role that journal titles play in how
universities evaluate candidates for jobs and promotions. In most academic
disciplines, careers are built by publishing papers in prestigious journals
– those that are the most selective, and therefore have the most cache.
Scholars rising through the ranks of graduate school, the job market,
assistant professorships and tenure face a nearly contant barrage of
messages telling them that they have to publish in the best journals if
they want to succeed at the next step. Never mind that it is far less true
than people believe. That people believe it is all that matters.

Almost everyone I know thinks that simply looking at journal titles is a
stupid way to decide who is or is not a good researcher, and yet it
remains. There are many reasons why this system persists, but the most
important is that universities like it. Administrators love having
something like an objective standard that can be applied to all of the
candidates for a job, promotion, etc… that might allow them to compare not
only candidates for one job to each other, but all candidates for any honor
across the university. This is perhaps why no university that I know of has
taken a forceful stand against the use of journal titles as a major factor
in hiring and promotion decisions. And it is, I believe, a major reason why
they are unwilling to cut off the flow of money to these journals.

*It’s never too late*

Although their record is pretty bad, universities could still play a major
role in making scholarly publishing work better – and save themselves money
in the process – with two simple actions:

   - Stop the flow of money to subscription journals. Universities should
   not renew ANY subscriptions. They should, instead, approach them with a new
   deal – they’ll maintain payments at current levels for 3 more years if the
   journal(s) commit to being fully open access at the end of that time.
   - Introduce – and heavily promote – new criteria for hiring and
   promotion that actively discourage the use of journal titles in evaluating
   candidates.

These ideas are not new. Indeed, the basic outlines appear in a fantastic essay
from the Association of Research
Librarians<http://www.thelearningalliance.info/Docs/Jun2003/DOC-2003Jun13.1055537929.pdf>
published
in March 1998, describing the serials crisis and their solutions to fix it:

The question inevitably asked is, “Who goes first?” Which major
universities and which scholarly societies have the will, confidence, and
financial resources to get the process started?

Our answer is simple and to the point. It is time for the presidents of the
nation’s major research universities to fish or cut bait.
Collectively, they have both opportunity and motive—and, in the Association
of American Universities, they have an organization with the capacity to
convene the necessary negotiations.

It’s amazing that essentially noboby took them up on the challenge the
first time. Let’s hope it doesn’t take  another 15 years.
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