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Science for Scientists, or Profits for Publishers?
SPARC, BioOne, and the Future of Scientific Communication
Brinley Franklin and Richard Fyffe
The practice of sharing one's research through publication in scholarly journals has been a major factor in the growth of knowledge since the 17th-century's Scientific Revolution. This is the gift that each author makes to his or her colleagues, enabling them to read about new discoveries; to test them, teach them, and build upon them. Scholarly publishers and the libraries that collect their journals archive this research for the benefit of future generations. Authors hope to see their work disseminated to as many interested readers as possible; they are served best when the barriers to readership are kept low. In this way scholars contribute to the growth of knowledge while advancing their own careers and the reputations of their department and university. For the last twenty years, however, scholars and librarians have faced with alarm the rapidly rising prices of many scientific journals, especially those published by commercial, for-profit publishers. Between 1986 and 1997, according to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the number of journal titles purchased by the nation's research libraries has declined by 6%. Over the same period, the unit cost of serials increased by 169%, and the amount of money spent on journals by these libraries increased by 142%. Cancellation of serial subscriptions is now an unwelcome part of most libraries' routine business. Improvements in document delivery services have lessened the negative impact of these cancellations, but the energy expended on journal cancellation projects by faculty and librarians does not advance the university's mission of teaching, research, and the dissemination of knowledge. Just as troubling, recent developments in digital technology are not generally accompanied by lower prices and wider dissemination. In fact, many publishers impose new restrictions on the kinds of users eligible to view their electronic products-restrictions that limit the scope of the fair use provisions of US copyright law and forbid sharing through interlibrary lending. A medium that promised to offer greater access to the world's knowledge at lower cost has yet to realize that potential.
SPARC
The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition, is an alliance of universities and libraries seeking to lower the cost of scientific communication, to ensure fair use of electronic resources, and to strengthen the proprietary rights and privileges of scholarly authorship. Launched by institutional members of the Association of Research Libraries in 1998, SPARC forms alliances with publishers to develop high-quality, economical alternatives to existing high-price publications. SPARC's membership includes 184 institutions; and its goals have been endorsed by the American Association of Universities and the American Association of University Presses. It is affiliated with major library organizations in Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland, Denmark, Australia and the United States. The University of Connecticut Libraries is a founding member of SPARC and supports its efforts and others like them to help assure the widest availability of scientific literature to the world's scholarly community-in this generation and in the future. University librarian Paul Kobulnicky was a member of SPARC's original steering committee. By partnering with publishers, SPARC aims to create a more competitive marketplace in which the cost of journal acquisition and use is reduced and publishers who are responsive to customer needs are rewarded. SPARC intends to influence the marketplace positively by encouraging publishers to enter markets where prices are highest and competition is needed most-primarily in the areas of science, technology, and medicine. SPARC's current projects include partnerships with the American Chemical Society to publish the journal Organic Letters and with the Royal Society of Chemistry to publish the journal PhysChemComm. A third SPARC project is the journal Evolutionary Ecology Research, edited by Michael Rosenzweig at the University of Arizona. Other SPARC projects include the Internet Journal of Chemistry and New Journal of Physics.
BioOne
SPARC's latest partnership, is also its most ambitious project. BioOne is an electronic aggregation of the full texts of dozens of leading research journals in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences. BioOne is a public/private collaboration of five organizations: SPARC, the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), the University of Kansas, the Big 12 Plus Libraries Consortium, and Allen Press. Greg Anderson, professor in UConn's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, is the current president of AIBS. BioOne will provide Internet access, for the first time, to a common database of leading journals in their fields at prices and under usage terms sensitive to the interests of both society publishers and institutional subscribers. The project will be launched with a broad selection of the journals and bulletins published by the 55 AIBS member societies. Back issues are expected to be included. Additional publishers and journals will be added over time. Ultimately, the BioOne aggregation could include nearly 200 science titles, including those from non-AIBS members.
Faculty Can Help
Faculty members in chemistry, physics, biology, and related fields are encouraged to consider placing their next suitable article in a SPARC-supported publication: Organic Letters; PhysChemComm; Evolutionary Ecology Research; Internet Journal of Chemistry; New Journal of Physics. Faculty are urged to become aware of the institutional prices of the journals in which they publish and the copyright restrictions that publishers may place on use of their articles once published, and to raise the questions of cost and copyright within their scholarly societies. For more information:Contact your liaison librarian or Brinley Franklin, Director of University Libraries; brinley.franklin@uconn.edu or 860-486-0497. The ARL website (www.arl.org/sparc) has additional information about SPARC and its projects.
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