Open Access News

At first glance, it seems that the research world is united against the Federal Research Public Access Act. Scholarly associations are lining up to express their anger over the bill, which would have federal agencies require grant recipients to publish their research papers - online and free - within six months of their publication elsewhere....Dozens of scholarly groups have joined in two letters - one organized by the Association of American Publishers and one by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. To look at the signatories (and the tones of the letters), it would appear that there’s a wide consensus that the legislation is bad for research....

But a rebellion of sorts is brewing online, where scholars who are, in theory, represented by some of these groups argue that the legislation would help research, that the scholarly associations are selling out their rank and file’s interests to prop up their publishing arms, and that the debate points to some underlying tensions about academic publishing in the digital age. These scholars - with the leaders of this informal movement coming from anthropology - want Congress to know that their associations aren’t speaking for them, and they also want to draw attention to the fact that some scholarly groups didn’t sign on....

In announcing their opposition to the bill, most scholarly associations have focused on the integrity of peer review and the quality of research. But the American Anthropological Association acknowledged that the “underlying concern” it had with the legislation was its impact on the business model being used to sell access to the association’s journals and on “revenue generation.”  Those remarks have led to a series of attacks on the association, in which it is being accused of ignoring the way many of its members would benefit from greater access to research results. On Anthropology.net, the association was taken to task for “ignorant opposition” to the bill. On Savage Minds, the association’s position is called “so, so misguided.” By being honest that it was concerned about its bottom line, it appears that the anthropology group has upset its own members.

Peter Suber, director of [the] Open Access Project [at Public Knowledge], said that these criticisms showed that the anthropology association (and others like it) have a conflict of interest. “They pretend to be speaking in the interests of scholarship, but they are really speaking for the interests of their publishing arms.” Suber, a research professor of philosophy at Earlham College, said that journal subscriptions end up supporting plenty of good things - educational outreach and annual meetings for associations are examples - but that doesn’t justify opposing open access. If associations want to support annual meetings and outreach programs, they need to charge their members, seek foundation support, or develop other strategies, he said, rather than relying on journal revenue....

[A]mong the associations notably absent from any of the letters criticizing the bill is the American Physical Society. Martin Blume, editor in chief for the society, which publishes nine journals, said the physicists’ association has already been functioning under a system in which authors may immediately post versions of their work anywhere that doesn’t charge - without any time lag. “Given what we already allow, we couldn’t really oppose this,” he said....