Study on the economic and technical evolution of the scientific ...

Statistical data on European libraries, from
1997 to 2001, shows a decrease in the numbers
of books and periodicals acquired, while at the
same time there has been a large increase
(28%) in spending on acquisitions, including on
electronic information (Fuegi and Jennings,
2004). Digital delivery enables the introduction
of new business models and brings significant
changes in the journal pricing policies: one has
moved from individual pricing and selling of
journals to “Big Deals”, i.e. selling bundles of
journals whose prices vary from institution to
institution; from annual subscriptions to licenses
lasting several years. Libraries have gathered
into consortia to share the benefits of access
and improve their bargaining positions in front
of publishers. As a short term result, the number
of electronic journals licensed by libraries has
been increasing over the last couple of years.
But the legacy of the previous price increases
is still there and many libraries face difficulties
in renewing ever costlier licenses (the University
of Cornell, for instance, renounced a Big Deal
contract in 2004 in order to be able to cancel
subscriptions to expensive journal titles).
In parallel to the publishing industry’s efforts to
develop high-performance platforms for searching
e-journals, scientists have continuously built upon
ICT developments to improve communication and
research collaboration processes (they have
invented the Internet), by means of e-mail discussion
lists, creating data bases, sharing models
and computer programmes etc. In the nineties,
the first e-print archives (server collecting papers
deposited by their authors 2 ) and free online peerreviewed
journals emerged, providing free access
to research articles. Indeed, the technologies
enable the development of alternative ways to
disseminate and exchange scientific information
freely and efficiently, as well as the creation of
new business models to provide open access to
journals, for instance by charging a publication fee
(the “author-pay” model). Starting from isolated
initiatives, the movement in favour of open access
to scientific information has gained scale through
the mobilization of groups of researchers and
libraries, the development of open access article
archives or repositories, and the recent policies of
research funding bodies about access to research
output.
1.3.2. THE POLICY CONTEXT
In view of the libraries’ difficulties and of the
opportunities provided by information
technologies, and acknowledging the
significant part of public funds involved in the
scientific publishing process, awareness of and
concerns about scholarly communication issues
have been rising in the research community and
research-related organizations.
In 1998, SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and
Academic Resources Coalition, an alliance of
universities, research libraries and organizations,
started to raise awareness about scholarly
communication issues and to support actions
enhancing broad and cost-effective access to
peer-reviewed scholarship. In 2001, the Public
Library of Science, a coalition of researchers,
launched a petition requesting that all published
articles be freely available within six months of
publication; it was signed by roughly 34000
scientists from 180 countries 3 . Soon after, three
major public statements of international scope
were issued in favour of “open access to
scholarly journal literature”:
• the Budapest Open Access Initiative 4 (February
2002), signed by more than 4000 individuals
and organizations from around the world,
representing researchers, universities,
laboratories, libraries, foundations, journals,
publishers, learned societies;
• the Bethesda Statement on Open Access
Publishing 5 (June 2003), issued by scientists,
libraries and publishers agreeing on significant,
concrete steps that all relevant parties can
take to promote open access publishing.
• The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to
Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities 6
(October 2003), signed by more than 60
organisations including large national
research institutions such as France's CNRS
and Germany's Max-Planck Institutes; national
Academies of Science such as those of
China, India and the Netherlands; international
research institutions such as CERN; and
individual universities and research funding
agencies around the world.
17