NYT op-ed equates raw manuscripts with published journal articles and demands open access
DOI: 10.1063/PT.4.0213
In the posting ‘Protect public access to taxpayer funded research’ in his blog called ‘it is NOT junk,’ Michael B. Eisen, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, writes, ‘I have an op-ed out today in the New York Times prompted by a new effort by publishers to restrict public access to the results of publicly-funded scientific research. If you’re as incensed by this as I am, you have several important opportunities to weigh in.’ The op-ed’s headline telegraphs Eisen’s conflation of the value of scientists’ manuscripts with that of the vetted, edited, published, and archived articles that ultimately appear in journals: ‘Research bought, then paid for.’
Eisen opposes the Research Works Act now being considered in Congress. If it passes, he writes, ‘to read the results of federally funded research, most Americans would have to buy access to individual articles at a cost of $15 or $30 apiece. In other words, taxpayers who already paid for the research would have to pay again to read the results.’
He calls the bill ‘the latest salvo in a continuing battle between the publishers of biomedical research journals . . . which are seeking to protect a valuable franchise, and researchers, librarians and patient advocacy groups seeking to provide open access to publicly funded research.’ Eisen does note that scientific publishers ‘claim’ that ‘while the research may be publicly funded, the journals are not.’ But he argues that ‘the journals receive billions of dollars in subscription payments derived largely from public funds’ and that the value added to articles by peer review ultimately amounts to a public subsidy because it stems from ‘publicly funded salaries [drawn] through universities or research organizations.’
Eisen declares, ‘Rather than rolling back public access, Congress should move to enshrine a simple principle in United States law: if taxpayers paid for it, they own it. . . . For too long scientists, libraries and research institutions have supported the publishing status quo out of a combination of tradition and convenience.’ NIH, universities and other public and private agencies that sponsor academic research, he says, ‘should make it clear that fulfilling their mission requires that their researchers’ scholarly output be freely available to the public at the moment of publication.’
In an earlier, related blog posting , Eisen calls for scientific societies—including the American Institute of Physics, which publishes Physics Today—to quit the Association of American Publishers. That organization, however, offers an online statement of its own outlook on the contested bill, including this paragraph:
Publishers support reasonable efforts by the federal government to make the results of publicly-funded research widely available without mandates; these include the statutory directives to guarantee broad access in the America COMPETES Act. There has been ongoing dialogue between publishers and Executive Branch officials at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Department of Energy and National Science Foundation to find solutions for broad dissemination of research results without weakening incentives for investments in private-sector research works.
Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics, monitors three national newspapers, the weeklies Nature and Science, and occasionally other publications. His reports to AIP are collected each Friday for Science and the Media . He has published op-eds in the Washington Post and other newspapers, has written for NASA’s history program, and is a science writer at a particle-accelerator laboratory.