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Academic publishers reap huge profits as libraries go broke

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Re: Academic publishers reap huge profits as libraries go broke

#31

Post by droithomme »

I find the situation quite frustrating since it's difficult to near impossible for a lot of the public to have access to research. Public libraries don't generally have subscriptions to the journals, nor do many community colleges. One has to go to a state university, and that can be a long drive. In my case it's a 2 hr drive each way, then the only parking available is by putting quarters into one of a small number of parking meters, which are usually taken. The university library doesn't allow the public to check out or get cards or have online access.

Yes, I could get an alumni card at my own alma mater, for a substantial fee, and check things out there. But then I'd have to take a plane across the country to have access since like many people I did not stay in the town where I went to school. Also, they also don't have parking. Oh there's free parking on Sunday. When the library is closed, so that doesn't help much.

It's also frustrating because most times that I bring this situation up, people will appear in comments and say I am wrong or lying and claim that public libraries all have full journal access. It's not true. I've asked. My public libraries, in the county I live in, and all adjacent counties, do not have journal access. I've also called all of the colleges and know that the state university is the nearest location where I can get access. Despite this there's usually people that will show up and claim that's all wrong and everyone has access. No, we don't.

Also a lot of the research tucked away was directly or indirectly supported with public funds. In some cases there is a requirement it be openly published, but not always. It seems unreasonable to have to support research and then not have open access to it.

Re: Academic publishers reap huge profits as libraries go broke

#32

Post by privong »

droithomme wrote: post #31

I find the situation quite frustrating since it's difficult to near impossible for a lot of the public to have access to research. Public libraries don't generally have subscriptions to the journals, nor do many community colleges. One has to go to a state university, and that can be a long drive. In my case it's a 2 hr drive each way, then the only parking available is by putting quarters into one of a small number…

It isn't a perfect solution, but the arXiv[0] has preprints of papers from a vareity of disciplines. A similar website exists for cryptography research, though I can't recall the name right now. Authors in many fields propagate the copyediting from the journal versions back to their preprints and so the preprints contain the same information as the "official" published paper.

Granted, not all fields utilize such a preprint server, but in some fields, the public's access to research results is not as dire as your comment states. There is, of course, still significant room for improvement, even in fields that use preprint servers.

[0] http://arxiv.org

Re: Academic publishers reap huge profits as libraries go broke

#33

Post by privong »

anigbrowl wrote: post #10
cafebeen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are two challenges here. First, opting out of major publication venues is essentially sacrificing your career (no funding/tenure). Second, researchers simply don't have free time to start up an alternative publication system. I think the funding agencies can do a lot more here though...

OTOH, if everyone who had tenure already cooperated then they would wield considerable power at low risk.

Tenure isn't the last step of promotion for faculty. There's still full professorships, salary increases, named professorships, the chance to advance to administration (if so inclined). So, while tenured faculty have more job security, there are still substantial incentives to publish in prestigious journals.

Re: Academic publishers reap huge profits as libraries go broke

#34

Post by noelsusman »

robertwalsh0 wrote: post #13

I think as time goes on we'll find that journals are able to do more and more of the work themselves in such a way that disrupts the monopoly as we know it today. Journals and the academic community already perform the review process themselves (with little reward) and are finding that the "typesetting" and "dissemination" value-adds from publishers are things that they can do on their own as well. On a large scale,…

PLOS One is a step in the right direction, but it just shifts the cost burden from institutions to individual professors. They do a lot to minimize that cost as much as they can, but at the end of the day PLOS gets revenue from the authors. Grants often don't include provisions for that, but maybe that will change.

I too am confident that things will continue to improve.

Re: Academic publishers reap huge profits as libraries go broke

#35

Post by ams6110 »

droithomme wrote: post #31

I find the situation quite frustrating since it's difficult to near impossible for a lot of the public to have access to research. Public libraries don't generally have subscriptions to the journals, nor do many community colleges. One has to go to a state university, and that can be a long drive. In my case it's a 2 hr drive each way, then the only parking available is by putting quarters into one of a small number…

A state university that doesn't allow taxpaying residents of that state to access university libraries? I've never experienced that.

Re: Academic publishers reap huge profits as libraries go broke

#36

Post by jacquesm »

dagw wrote: post #23
slashnull wrote: post #15

> Traditionally, most journals were published by non-profit scientific societies. But when journals shifted from print to online digital formats, those societies couldn't afford the cost of the equipment needed to make the switch. Instead, they sold their journals to large, for-profit publishers wait, what I can't figure out how it would be possible that shifting from physical paper to online hosting could be more ex…

I can't figure out how it would be possible that shifting from physical paper to online hosting could be more expensive Developing and hosting something like JSTOR in the early to mid 90's was no where near as cheap and easy as it might be today (and let's face it even today it isn't completely trivial). Doubly so if you had no staff with the relevant skills and had to do everything via consultants.

That it was expensive in the mid 90's is no reason for it to be expensive today. Plenty of entities would host that data for free.

Re: Academic publishers reap huge profits as libraries go broke

#37

Post by dagw »

jacquesm wrote: post #36
dagw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't figure out how it would be possible that shifting from physical paper to online hosting could be more expensive Developing and hosting something like JSTOR in the early to mid 90's was no where near as cheap and easy as it might be today (and let's face it even today it isn't completely trivial). Doubly so if you had no staff with the relevant skills and had to do everything via consultants.

That it was expensive in the mid 90's is no reason for it to be expensive today. Plenty of entities would host that data for free.

No, but it does explain why the traditional publishing societies didn't do it themselves back in the day and instead had to rely on for-profit entities.

Re: Academic publishers reap huge profits as libraries go broke

#38

Post by Ahwe4 »

Most 'solutions' to this problem involve an open access revolution where researchers put their publications online on the arXiv or similar.

This is entirely possible but it doesn't address the need for journal subscriptions to access pre-existing articles. As I understand it, unless copyright law changes, if a researcher wants to read online a 1970s paper from Nature, their library has to subscribe to Nature forever (approximately), even if everything they produce from today onwards will be uploaded to github.

It seems the only time I'm ever on Springer or Wiley is to read some conference proceedings from 1992.

Re: Academic publishers reap huge profits as libraries go broke

#39

Post by mgr86 »

dagw wrote: post #37
jacquesm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That it was expensive in the mid 90's is no reason for it to be expensive today. Plenty of entities would host that data for free.

No, but it does explain why the traditional publishing societies didn't do it themselves back in the day and instead had to rely on for-profit entities.

Cost is half of it. The other half was very resistant. I am told that when my office started going digital in the late 80's there was a lot of turmoil and it split the organization. That attributed greatly to a period where we had 3 presidents for a year. Digitization won of course.

Re: Academic publishers reap huge profits as libraries go broke

#40

Post by akshat_h »

droithomme wrote: post #31

I find the situation quite frustrating since it's difficult to near impossible for a lot of the public to have access to research. Public libraries don't generally have subscriptions to the journals, nor do many community colleges. One has to go to a state university, and that can be a long drive. In my case it's a 2 hr drive each way, then the only parking available is by putting quarters into one of a small number…

Curious if a vpn service to libraries would solve this problem somewhat. At least for the alumni card, you should get access to vpn account.
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