In this post I will discus Open Access benefits and issues
if any. With the development of the Internet and The World Wide Web access to
information changed drastically. Starting with Web 1.0 where HTML can be read
and linked, moving to Web 2.0 where users can get involved into interaction by
commenting, personalising web pages etc. Furthermore, semantic web makes it
even more proactive as makes websites machine readable which means information
can be found, combined and acted upon by computers. However, with so much
information on the Web being placed the issue of information value arises. Should
users be charged for information they seek or should it be free?
When the first social networks emerged excitement was so
high that users didn’t mind paying a fee to access them. Take for instance
website Friends Reunited. However, as more social networks free of use started
to emerge popularity of paid websites plunged. Willingness to pay for
information is very low; especially for electronic information. Due to vast
amount of it available on the internet users will choose the one which is free
against the paid one. In the information management and library services
situation is complicated as well. Even if the cost may be determent the value
stays unknown. The certain books, documents which have known cost can be used
to look for information, however outcome is hard to predict and as a result
value of this information can not be established. Raban (2007) argues that “the
value of information perceived by the user may change with changing market or
social influences, it may change over time or due to the accumulation of
experience.”
Let us take a closer look at the journals; their prices were
increasing steadily for a long time which results in “not only must libraries
cope by cancelling subscriptions and cutting into their book budgets, but
researchers must do without access to some of the journals critical to their
research.” (Suber 2003) As Karen Albert points out library organisations were
concerned about subscription price increases from 1980. Furthermore, it has
been stressed out that high prices might be influenced by profit-seeking
publishers. “Dual pricing levels force libraries to routinely pay more than ten
times the price charged individuals for the same subscription.” (Albert 2006)
The first electronic journals didn’t solve the problem of the high subscription
prices. The libraries are prevented from using electronic journals in the same
full and free way that they may now use print journals due to licensing and
software locks. (Suber 2003) And that’s when steps in Open Access (OA).
With the beginning of Internet service new ways of
publishing and accessing information became known. In 2003 Berlin declaration on Open Access stated the
goals as follow:
Our mission of disseminating knowledge is only half complete if the
information is not made widely and readily available to society. New
possibilities of knowledge dissemination not only through the classical form
but also and increasingly through the open access paradigm via the Internet
have to be supported. We define open access as a comprehensive source of human
knowledge and cultural heritage that has been approved by the scientific
community. In order to realize the vision of a global and accessible representation of knowledge, the future Web has to be sustainable, interactive, and transparent. Content and software tools must be openly accessible and compatible.
In short the open access to electronic information is free of charge to everyone and is available for unrestricted reading, downloading, copying, sharing, storing, printing, searching, linking and crawling. (Suber 2003) As Budapest Open Access Initiative states there are two ways to achieve it: self-archiving which is known as “green” road and open-access journals as “gold” road. Open-access journals contain peer reviews and are freely available to the readers. Self-archiving makes content available for free and contain unrefereed preprints, refereed postprints, or both. (Suber 2003) However, free access to information does not mean that publishing and making it accessible is free. If article is going to be published as electronic version rather than hard copy the certain cost will still apply. Take for instance “green” road; the researches can be placed in the archives which belong to institutions like universities, colleges etc. These archives are maintained by open-source software which has its costs as server space and time of technician. The “gold” road has its price as well; distributing the files to reviewers, tracking progress, nagging dawdlers, facilitating communication, and collecting data. (Suber 2003) There are two options to cover the costs: author-pays vs. user-pays. (Esposito 2004) Both of these categories can have their sponsors. User-pays category can be covered by libraries and author-pays by research institutions.
If to publish an article author has to find proxy to cover publishing costs and make it freely available without expecting to make money out of it one might raise a question what are the benefits of Open-Access. The articles are written to benefit further researches and advance professional statuses. Furthermore, authors do not seek benefit financially. It goes back to XVII century when early journals could not afford to pay authors and this tradition of writing for impact instead of payment continued. (Albert 2006) The evidence is still being collected however the statement can be made that freely available papers have greater research impact. (Antelam 2004) On-line published researches with open access have more potential to be downloaded, read and cited than those published in print journals. Impact rather then financial reward was always the main motivation for researchers. On another hand it has to be mentioned that librarians are likely to continue to pay for user-pays journals that their constituencies (faculty and students) want, and authors are likely to continue to submit papers to user-pay journals if such journals will advance them professionally. (Esposito 2004) The journals with a reputation will motivate authors to publish their academic research in these journals along to making the researches freely available to access on line. It seems that for some time user-pay category will be paying and for physical journals and for open-source software maintenance which indicates that expenses will not be reduced straight away. As Esposito pictures this “The faculty, who must continue to read in their disciplines and want access to the publications they publish in themselves – and whose professional advancement is tied to these very same journals – will continue to press libraries to spend, spend, spend.” Once again willingness to pay for information is based on authority. The articles published in the academic journals are more trustworthy as they have been reviewed by peers before publishing which doesn’t apply to electronic versions. Self-archiving doesn’t have peer reviews. It leads to question how can one decide which information published on the internet is reliable. The blogs especially has the issue of reliability. However, there is a space for publishers to step in and offer wider readership and recognition for the authors. For example, the publisher may automate the metatagging process, create an abstract of the text of the blog and use it to search other web sites or create a database by discipline of scholars and e-mail them whenever a posting in their areas appeared, inviting them to comment on the blog. (Esposito 2004) There are more services to be considered before authors’ and readers’ needs are satisfied.
As mentioned earlier the main benefit of the open-access is: information is freely available to wider audience via internet. Another few vital advantages of open-access have been discussed in The Open Access Open Data conference which took place in Cologne, Germany on 13-14 December 2010. (Giglia 2011) One of the speakers Rainer Kuhlen offered a “knowledge ecology” concept which suggests that publishing models are only acceptable when they acknowledge the status of knowledge as a commons, allowing free and open access for everyone. As a result, the commercial use of publicly produced knowledge should be exception and open and free access the default. Alma Swan stressed out that open-access connects readers worldwide and fosters international and interdisciplinary collaboration. When discussing open data issues Celina Ramjoue described European Commission’ vision for 2030 “..point in the direction of an infrastructure that supports seamless access, use, reuse and trust of data. It suggests a future in which the data infrastructure becomes invisible, and the data themselves have become infrastructure – a valuable asset, on which science, technology, the economy and society can advance.” Toby Green and Jan Brase addressed findability problem. It was suggested integration of books, journals, datasets and tables in a single search engine within the OECD library and called for libraries to open their catalogues to non-textual materials. (Giglia 2011) The dialogues between professionals encourage development of open-access; it gives an opportunity to new perspectives. This is where authors and librarians should meet and make changes to the world ruled by publishers not only by saving money but making access to knowledge easy and free. Librarians with their skills to manage information are the ones who should be leading towards successful open-access use in practice.
Albert (2004) distinguishes 3 steps in achieving price reduce: 1. development of more OA (“gold” road) and SPARC-type (lower subscription cost) journals; 2. increased implementation of institutional repositories and self-archiving; 3. more funders mandating deposit of grant-supported manuscripts in free archives.
Another example would be contributor-run libraries who allow people to contribute. By giving contributors and readers access to tools for evaluating, ranking, and managing the collections, we are building communities of intellectual discourse. (Jones 2001) Libraries which encourage contribution and interaction open new possibilities for society.
Brophy (2007) lists challenges which arise for librarians with the open-access: 1. self-archiving authors are reluctant in doing so and libraries who undertake the work of depositing on behalf of authors are taking expensive route; 2. it is not always clear what version the repository is holding as there are pre-prints, direct copies and post-prints; 3. retrieve the relevant item will be difficult due to institutionally based repositories which contain items from a wide variety of subject domains; 4. there is some concern that repository owners could be tempted to take monopolistic actions; 5. tension between open access and long-term preservation.
Open-access is changing our understanding about information and use of it. It brings new ways of managing and sharing knowledge. It is ongoing process; the open access is being developed continuously as with every new tool made available more needs for new services arise.
References:
Antelman, K. (2004), Do Open-Access Articles Have a Greater Research Impact? College and Research Libraries, 65 (5), 372-382 (available at http://crl.acrl.org/content/65/5/372.full.pdf+html )
Albert, K.M. (2006). Open Access: implications for scholarly publishing and medical libraries, Journal of the Medical Library Association, 94(3), 253-262 (available at http://0-web.ebscohost.com.wam.city.ac.uk/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&hid=14&sid=0ff4713b-0c58-46cb-8709-085984e6920d%40sessionmgr4 )
Brophy, P. (2007) The Library in the twenty-first century, second edition, London, Facet Publishing
Esposito, J.J. (2004). The Devil you don't know: the unexpected future of Open Access publishing, First Monday, 9(8) (available at http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1163/1083 )
Gigla, E. (2011), Open Access, Open Data: Paradigm Shifts in the Changing Scholarly Communication Scenario, D-Lib 17(3/4) (available at http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march11/giglia/03giglia.html )
Jones, P. (2001) Open (source)ing the doors for contributor-run digital libraries. Communications of the ACM, 44 (5), 45-46 (available at http://0-cacm.acm.org.wam.city.ac.uk/magazines/2001/5/7355-open-sourceing-the-doors-for-contributor-run-digital-libraries/fulltext )
Raban, D.R. (2007), User-centred evaluation of information: a research challenge, Internet Research, 17 (3), 306-322 (available at http://0-www.emeraldinsight.com.wam.city.ac.uk/journals.htm?issn=1066-2243&volume=17&issue=3&articleid=1610804&show=html )
Suber, P. (2003) Removing the Barriers to Research: An Introduction to Open Access for Librarian, College & Research Libraries News, 64, 92-94 (available at http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/acrl.htm )
http://oa.mpg.de/berlin-prozess/berliner-erklarung (visited on 11 Dec 2001)
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read (visited on 11 Dec 2011)
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