[Open-access] An anti-RWA bill

[Björn Brembs]

Mike Taylor wrote:

> It's a question of strategy.  How we get there from here. If you go
> to 100 randomly chosen scientists from randomly chosen institutions,
> you'll get 87 blank stares 12 furious arguments that some form of the
> journal system is necessary, and -- if you're lucky -- one who will
> sign up for your Destroy All Publishers campaign.

I haven't met a single person, yet, who is married to the
current system. All we need to present is something that's
superior than what we have now - and that's really trivial,
especially given the kind of money we'd have at our
disposal. No human being, let alone a scientist would pass
up on saving time and money. 

So we only need to talk to a few, select librarians with a
sufficiently large budget that would allow relatively
massive funds to be freed pretty much instantaneously. With
only ten libraries each cutting just 5 of their most
expensive journals, we'd have ~600k per year. this of course
quickly scales with the number of libraries and number of
subscriptions cut.

Two years with ten libraries and maybe a grand total of 2-5
million in budget would easily let us construct a data and
literature database that is vastly superior than anything
available today - because something like that doesn't even
exist. After two years, we'd be able to offer services
too enticing for anybody refuse.

> Politics is the art of the possible.  What's possible *today* is a
> strong move towards universal open access within the existing
> publishing system.  (Or at least open access for federally funded
> research in the USA.)

Yes, that'd be fantastic progress: Elsevier charging 25 grand
for a Cell publication or NPG 15 for a Nature paper - so you
don't have to just bribe the editors, as today, you also have
to get a mortgage on your house if you want to have a job.

Given the track record of the publishers now, an author
pays OA model will most likely be even worse than what we
have today. 

> Once that has been achieved, the publishers' position will be more
> precarious

Why? What's keeping NPG from charging 15k per paper? If
nothing else changes, we still have to publish there to
survive. With less and less tenured faculty jobs around,
that pressure will be even higher then it is now!

For the US scientists, this means that on top of the ~100k
they are in debt after college, they have another 50k on top
in debt for publishing fees.
What's the appeal in that? Why should I spend even a single
minute of my day fighting for that future? because then at
least the tax-payer can read everything? Sorry, if only the
rich get to be scientists, most of these papers will have
to be retracted anyway.

Nick Barnes wrote:

> Exactly.  Also: there are multiple interested parties, and this is a
> simple agenda which could unite them as a broad alliance. For
> instance, my main interest is in broad access for reading the
> literature, so that I - and other interested members of the public -
> can read it.

I'd say it is fairly obvious that if we only aim to change
that and nothing else, the situation would clearly be worse
and I don't understand why I should fight for a worse
situation than that we have now. I would oppose that
alliance as counter-productive.

>  An individual researcher writing a paper
> wants more readers but is likely to be quite conservative about change
> (for good career reasons: they need to worry about impact factors,
> citation counts, and so on).

Which is precisely why we aim at the reading end first and
not at the publishing end. Publishing in our system is
something that comes automatically, when fewer and fewer
people read the dino journals, because they can get all the
information better and more effortless in our system.

> An entrepreneurial
> publisher might be interested in an OA business model which allows
> them to massively undercut Elsevier/Springer/NPG and grab
> market-share.

Yes, I'm so looking forward to publish the one paper that's
going to give me tenure in the cheap also-ran, instead of
getting that mortgage to pay for the Cell paper.

Journals that publish less than 8% of all submissions
because everybody has to publish there to survive can charge
almost what they want: look at tuition fees - it's the same
thing! A paper is then merely the cost of another semester.

> All these different people can get behind a universal OA mandate for
> taxpayer-funded science,

Why would they, given that universal author pays OA would be
even worse that what we have now? I'm surely not behind a
universal OA mandate without embargo, because then it would
simply be Elsevier & Co hyperinflating their author charges
like they are subscriptions now and the only party with a
benefit would be the tax-payer - at my expense. This I will
oppose.

The journal hierarchy needs to be destroyed as well, and
then there's even less use for commercial publishers.

> If you set out to go far, nobody comes with you.  Take a single step,
> and many people might step forward too.

That step, if universally realized, would be worse than what
we have now (at least for scientists) and so I'm clearly not
supporting it - I would actually work against it.

Peter Murray-Rust wrote:

>  I'm very responsive to the current discussion. I am increasingly
> interested in doing something different rather than incremental in the
> current system. I also want to work with current groups where possible but
> not to be subsumed into them.

I might be neutral towards incremental changes, but a step
backwards that's being sold as an incremental improvement, I
will oppose.

I hope I haven't alienated anybody now? I've been awake for
almost 40h after a transatlantic flight and might sound more
agonistic than I am. I have gained these insights in the
last few weeks and so far, nobody has been able to disperse
my arguments.

All the best,

Bjoern



-- 
Björn Brembs
---------------------------------------------
http://brembs.net
Neurobiology
Freie Universität Berlin
Germany