ORGANISERS of a boycott of scientific journals are pressing ahead with plans
to publish their own journals free on the Internet. The move follows refusals by
publishers to make their archives freely available online.
Six weeks ago, scientists called for a boycott after major publishers refused
to upload papers to an online 鈥淧ublic Library of Science鈥� within six months of
publication. More than 28,000 scientists had demanded the change in a joint
letter and some of them have now decided to stop subscribing to, writing for, or
peer-reviewing papers for any of the thousands of journals refusing to upload
papers to the PLoS.
The group now says it will launch a number of free peer-reviewed electronic
journals early next year. It will cover its costs by charging its authors about
$250 for each paper they publish.
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Publishers have responded by saying that they provide a stable, reliable way
for scientists to publish their research. And most make their archives available
in some form. For instance, Elsevier Science (part of Reed Elsevier, which
publishes 快猫短视频) makes 1200 journals available in a full-text
subscription database, says Derk Haank, chief executive of Elsevier Science. And
Science magazine announced it will make its articles freely available
after one year.
But Michael Eisen, a biologist at the University of California at Berkeley
and one of the organisers of the PLoS initiative, complains that the disparate
journal databases are expensive and make sophisticated literature searches
difficult. 鈥淲hy should we allow this to occur? I can鈥檛 see a single advantage,
except to the publishers,鈥� he says.
Last week, 40 members of the editorial board of the journal Machine Learning
resigned to join a free online publication, the Journal of Machine Learning
Research. Although not part of the PLoS initiative, they offer similar
justification. 鈥淎ll you have to do is create a home page for the journal.
There鈥檚 almost no overhead,鈥� says Berkeley computer scientist Michael Jordan,
one of the board members who resigned.
So far though, publishers contacted by 快猫短视频 say the effects of the
PLoS group鈥檚 boycott have been minimal. 鈥淎cross all Nature journals, only a
handful of reviewers have so far declined on these grounds,鈥� says Philip
Campbell, Nature鈥檚 editor-in-chief. He also says there鈥檚 no discernible drop-off
in the number of papers being submitted. Spokespeople for Science and Elsevier
Science also say they鈥檝e noticed no effect from the boycott so far.
But the issue is not going to go away. 鈥淎ll the major journal publishers are
developing their own electronic publishing models,鈥� says Martin Maleska, who
runs the media investment bank Veronis, Suhler & Associates in New York.
鈥淐learly they see the printing-on-paper world is going to be affected. The
question is, what is the pricing model going to be? And how do you deal with
people who offer free access?鈥�