Editorial
Federal Research Publishing Houses?
I
n the spring of this year, a proposal, or better, a plan, with apparently no external consultation, emerged from the director's office at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The plan establishes an electronic publishing house, called E-Bioscience (formerly E-Biomed), for the eurpose of "low-cost, barrier-free access by scientists to all of the contributions of their fellow scientists." I encourage readers to read the plan on the Web at www.nih.gov/welcome/director/ebiomed/ ebiomed.htm. Many of its ideas are known and under hot pursuit by those already publishing journals electronically. Many are questionable, reflect an ill-informed state, or just have a bad odor. Consider: Should a U.S. government research funding agency seize control of the publication of its ensuing research results, and those funded by other agencies and other nations? The plan disavows any intention of NIH or E-Bioscience'§ "governing board" (whose appointment, one must assume, involves NIH influence) to control research publication; however, such a stance is colored false by a careful reading of the accompanying text. A particular problem with this overt, massive involvement of NIH is that, as a U.S. government agency, it is subject to political pressures (e.g., when public morals clash with current science) This aspect of NIH's power grab of publishing and all it imports is one of the worst aspects of the plan. Consider also: Should a U.S. Goveenment agency place itself into competition with the already vigorous and rapidly growing electronic publishing efforts of nonprofit and private publishing houses? The playing field is not level; the financial pockets of this proposed federal publishing house are surely deep and unencumbered by normal financial constraints. This is even more worrisome given that other publishing houses are anticipated to become subservient again, this is implicit in the plan to E-Bioscience. The NIN statement intludes the words: "Second, some societies may be able to aller their financial planning to compensate for losses due to a transition to an electronic system that operates in the proposed for E-Bioscience FoF example additional revecould be raised from annual meetings " (Ha ha!) The plan trumpets a goal of low-cost, barrier-free
access to scientific information. I would assert that, in developed nations, practicing scientists typically do not experience barriers; the issue is more of access in developing nations. The issue of finances is thrust center stage by this goal of barrier-free access; the problems are not benign. The plan's promise of low costs reminds me of the joke about "letting a government agency do it so we can save money." It is suggested that publishing costs might be shifted to authors; a news report has mentioned a number of $100 to $1000 (USD) per article. If you include indirect costs, that could amount to $15,000 per year for a laboratory that has a productive year and publishes 10 The plan shifts the publication costs from the reader and institutional libraries to the researcher How do the other granting agencies view the prospect of a large publication tax on their awards to researchers who publish under the E-Bioscience banner? Will the National Science Foundation decide to raise its own E-NSF publlshing banner? I hope not! And if futhors' costs escalate in this manner, then what of the financially struggling authors in developing countries, or even those in the United States and Europe? Another ill-considered part of the E-Bioscience plan is electronic publication without peer review. Discarding a long-standing mechanism for ensuring that what is published in science is true and of significance seems exceedingly risky. An even more startling idea is that papers can be retroactively changed (added to). This is a clear incentive for authors to "publish fast, you can get it right later." The authors of the plan say that science will adjust. I invite you to read about this plan yourself. Although it deals only with biomedical science publications, it will include a lot of analytical chemistry and will very likely affect publishing throughout all the sciences. Our present system of publication does have warts—library costs are a prominent one—and can't claim perfection. However, the NIH plan has so many warts that it will be a step backward.
Analytical Chemistry News & Features, September 1, 1999 573 A
