Transcript Scientific information: A partnership between the library

The role of the library
as access point to
scientific communication
Raf Dekeyser
University Library, K.U.Leuven (Belgium)
([email protected])
Overview
1. Mechanisms of scientific information
Introduction
Active usage of full-text journals (i.e. "writing")
Secondary databases - JCR
Passive usage of full-text journals (i.e. "reading")
The serials crisis
2. Electronic publishing and electronic archives
Overview of some existing e-print servers
Collectors and portals
Discussion
3. Towards a new method for scholarly
communication: OAI – peer review – overlay
journals
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1. Mechanisms of scientific information
Introduction
• Library  passive container of information
but  strong relation with research centres
• budget tailored to research profile
• library = beginning and end of research
• librarian must be aware of mechanisms of
scientific information!
• Differences between research fields:
• more international communication in exact
sciences
• monographs versus journals
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Many roles played by information (R.Hayes):
• Data collecting (e.g. historical sources)
• Communication about ongoing research
• Registration of results:
- certificate of quality control
- establishment of intellectual rights of
author
+ professional & educational use
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Different types of publications
• Books:
– Monographs
– Collection of papers (e.g. Proceedings)
– Series (e.g. Springer Tracts in...)
• Journals:
• Letter journals
• Review journals
• Research journals
• Commercial journals
• Society journals
From weak monitoring to strict peer review
•
Databases
– Bibliographic
– Data
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Active usage of full-text (writing)
• Researchers want - maximal and rapid dissemination
- but also publication in prestigious journal
(somehow contradictory, due to high prices!!)
• Preprint-archives turn into main channel of information,
with paper publication for recognition, not for communication…
•
Validation by refereeing is important tool for quality control
Remains important in electronic media!
Reviews and monographs ?
•
•
•
Writing of review articles considered as important task
Monographs are undervalued, both by authors and libraries
Better value-for-money in books than in journals
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Secondary databases
•
•
•
•
•
•
Bibliographic databases: Very important tool in electronic
format
Less intensively used in domains with strong exchange of
information (preprints…)
Special use at crossroads of research
Alerting service for continuous update of information
Improved facilities: e.g. linking to full text
Special databases: Citations (Web of Science, JCR,...)
Citation and article counts are important indicators of how
frequently current researchers are using individual
journals. Used for evaluation of both researchers and
journals!
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Journal of Citation Reports (JCR)
• Article counts (current and previous product year)
• Total Cites (number of total citations to articles in the
journal for the current JCR year)
• Cited half-life (the number of publication years from the
current year which account for 50% of current citations
received)
• Citing half-life (the number of publication years from the
current year that account for 50% of the current citations
published by a journal in its article references)
• Immediacy Index (calculated by dividing the number of
citations to articles published in a given year by the number
of articles published in that year)
• Impact factor (calculated by dividing the number of current
citations to articles published in the two previous years by
the total number of articles published in the two previous
years)
• Each journal in the ISI database is assigned to at least one
subject category
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Passive usage of full-text (reading)
• Very important for beginning researchers and at turning points
• Use is limited through intensive direct exchange of information
• Researchers expect library to deliver documents (ILL) – will
libraries become service centres?
• Subscription prices have increased very rapidly (“journal crisis”,
see next pages))
• Electronic package deals
• Possibility for pay-per-view - role of library?
• Possibility for selective “print on demand” instead of package
journals?
• Conclusion for acquisition budget: “access” to ephemeral
information sources, archiving of matured research reports
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Established journal system
• Author sends article to journal/editor.
• Editor sends article to referee.
• If not rejected: some corrections may be required, but
finally paper is accepted and printed in journal (many
months after writing of the paper!).
• Title and abstract are included in databases, readers start
referring to it, which is registered in citation database.
• Problems: Role of journal prestige (from impact
parameter): leads to higher status of author, giving rise to
uncontrollable subscription prices.
• Old-fashioned technology… (even in electronic format)
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Relative prices (1970= 100)
The journal crisis
journals
books
index
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Title
B iochimica &
Biophysica Acta
Journal of the
American Chemical
Society
Nuclear Physics
Price in 1970
Price in 1998
475 $
9984 $
50 $
2053 $
442 $
16674 $
From 1970 to 1995 (corrected for increase of index
of consumption prices):
- increase of the STM-subscription prices with
471%
- increase of the price per unit surface with 270%
(entomology)
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The vicious circle of price increases and
cancellations
• Price increase  Cancellations  New price increases to
compensate loss of income  etc...
• High impact parameter attracts better papers  further
increase of impact parameter  journal prestige allows
unreasonable price increases
• Some learned societies follow example of commercial
publishers
• Collection policy is compromise between wishes of users
and possibilities of budget
• Consequences: poor library collections, increase of ILL,
less acquisition of monographs
• No solution in view from the electronic products...?
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Complaint:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Publisher receives articles at no cost – proof-read and digitised!
University staff “peer reviews” the articles – mostly for free
Publisher acquires all rights: first publication, copyright,
republication, digitisation rights,…
Author receives no financial compensation (only indirectly…)
Author loses control over further use, he should even pay for
distribution of copies to students!
Universities have to pay many times for same material:
– Salary of the researcher
– Price of book or subscription to journal
– Duties for photocopying
– Duties for using as classroom material
Questionable business model for distribution of knowledge!
Hinders free access to knowledge
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How should acquisition collection be built ?
• Know your customers:
– undergraduate students: introductory textbooks
– graduate students: more advanced monographs
– research staff: more specialised journals, adapted to
local research profile
• Interlibrary loan agreements for seldom used materials
• Measure use of library material
• Find instruments for measuring the quality of the journals:
citations, impact parameter,... Remember to test the
relevance of these measures for your local situation!
• Check the quality versus price relation: cost per article,
cost per page, per usage...
• Maximise potential use of material within the limits of the
available budget (eventually per discipline)
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Title
$
#p
Physical Review C
Journal of Chemical Physics
Reviews of Modern Physics
Physics of Fluids
Journal of Mathematical Physics
Physica D
Nuclear Instruments & Methods
Nuclear Physics A
Annals of Physics
Fortschritte der Physik
1160
3175
360
1310
1535
2836
8344
7294
2100
765
15456
21576
1304
3984
6752
4673
8594
10753
3045
751
$/kCh ../Imp
1.03
2.14
4.00
4.68
4.77
11.98
15.57
18.30
19.51
21.77
0.517
0.608
0.198
2.904
4.554
7.697
15.003
10.028
8.938
28.378
(According to a study at the University of Wisconsin in 1997)
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$
Physics: Non-Profit Average
Physics: Commercial Average
Economy: Non-Profit Average
Economy: Commercial Average
Neurosciences: Non-Profit Average
Neurosci.: Commercial Average
1261
2540
97
451
431
1535
Impact
2.33
2.13
0.96
0.64
4.49
3.77
$/kCh ../Imp
5.76
13.83
3.91
15.32
2.38
15.47
8.23
14.61
11.55
42.62
0.64
8.69
(According to a study at the University of Wisconsin in 1997)
• Other suggestion: compare the subscription price of a
journal with the cost of an individual document delivery.
and the expected number of requests.
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Traditional solutions
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•
•
•
•
•
•
cancellations and increased ILL
distribution of preprints to colleagues
electronic preprint distribution (e-mail or web page)
arrival of large free-access archives
(see further)
SPARC (Scholarly Publication and Academic Resources
Coalition): new possibilities through competition (new journals)
publishers offer their own e-formats; some protest against selfarchiving…
ICOLC publishes Statement with standards for licence agreements
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http://www.arl.org/sparc/home/index.asp?page=0
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2. Electronic publishing and archives
How will we optimise scientific information through new media?
Some recent initiatives for fast and cheap channels of
communication!
Overview of some existing e-print servers
• Los Alamos e-print archive with 15 mirror sites (physics and
mathematics) – started in 1991 (Ginsparg)
• Unrefereed author self-archiving: contributions reappear in
standard journals
• Free access (Arguments for free dissemination when
author and reader communities coincide)
• Fast dissemination!
• 150.000 articles; in 2000: 13 million downloads
• Now at Cornell University
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http://arxiv.org/
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Similar initiatives:
• CERN Document Server (DCS) (physics)
– Different types of documents; 430.000 bibliogr. Records,
170.000 full texts
– Free registration
• Chemistry preprint server (CPS) at ChemWeb
– Free registration
– Still rather small collection
• Cogprints (Cognitive sciences: psychology, neuroscience,
linguistics,…)
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http://cds.cern.ch/
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http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/
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Collectors and portals
• MPRESS and MathNet: index of mathematical preprints from
110 sources.
• Electronic Library of Mathematics (ElibM): free portal to
journals (50), proceedings and monographs.
• PhysDoc (part of PhysNet): similar to MPRESS, but for
physics.
• RePEc: similar, for economics.
• PubMedCentral (NIH): free access to biomedical journals (with
delay…).
• E-BioSci (EMBO): EU equivalent, but free access only to the
metadata.
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http://www.math-net.de/
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http://www.emis.de/ELibM.html
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http://www.eps.org/PhysNet/journals.html
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http://www.repec.org/
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http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/.
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History of PubMed Central
• May 1999: National Institute of Health (H.Varmus) proposes
E-biomed as new central electronic publishing site (life sciences)
• database for reviewed papers and repository for the rest
• aim: free, fast and full access (with support from
publishers? possibility for delayed access...)
• Renamed to PubMed Central - mixed reactions to proposal
• Many enthusiastic letters
• “Government should not interfere with private sector”
• Repository = taxpayer-supported junk
• Initiative will jeopardise existing journals and reduce
communication
• January 2000: start on limited scale (2 journals with short delay 10 more coming - no self-archiving)
• BioMed Central launched as new peer-reviewed electronic
journal with access through PubMed Central
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How were these initiatives accepted?
• Some publishers (e.g. APS) accept archives
and co-operate.
Others try to impose ‘Ingelfinger rule’, monopolising the
publication.
• Steven Harnad’s ‘subversive proposal’ and crusade for
freeing the refereed research literature by author selfarchiving.
• Appeal by ‘Public Library of Science’ for free access to
archival data (+ threat of boycott).
• Public debate on Nature website.
• ESA (entomology) offers authors option to pay for free
access (59% success rate!).
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3. Towards a new method for scholarly
communication
• In spite of new possibilities of Internet, no real
breakthrough yet (except in physics) – authors are afraid of
taking risks.
• Commercial publishers take strong position in market for ejournals (mergers, package deals with guaranteed price
increases without possibility for cancellations: unstable
economical model).
• Need for a good library-driven alternative, to result in more
competitive price setting. Not to replace existing journals,
but to coexist with them (to prevent monopolies).
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Requirements for new system
1. Possibility for unique access point with powerful
searching and efficient linking (→ OAI).
2. High quality scientific validation (peer review).
– It is part of the process through which our global
validated knowledge database is built (especially
important in health sciences!).
– Important for academic recognition of authors, and
therefore for success of communication system.
– Guarantee of quality for the reader, confused by
information overkill.
– Evaluation method for academic authorities.
– Improves quality of publications
3. (Longevity? Paper format?)
– Also commercial journals want to get rid of paper!
– Less important in STM-journals.
– Solution through electronic legal deposit.
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The Open Archives Initiative
(OAI)
(www.openarchives.org)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
October 1999: Idea for Universal Preprint Archive (UPS) as network
of servers
Renamed into “Open Archives” (OAI) and agreement about
standards (Santa Fe Convention); prototype created
Purpose: interoperability between e-print servers.
Metadata Harvesting protocol of the Open Archives Initiative
(OAMH).
Specification for exchange of metadata between archives (‘data
providers’) and harvesters (‘service providers’) (HTTP-based,
exchange of XML docs).
Possible uses: metadata db for large set of archives, SDI, alerting
services, linking,…
Free software from OAI and eprints.org.
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http://www.openarchives.org/index.html
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http://www.eprints.org/
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http://www.bbsonline.org/
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http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/index.html
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Workshop on the Open Archives Initiative
(OAI) and Peer Review journals in Europe
• CERN (Geneva, CH) 22-24 March 2001.
• Organiser: LIBER, with sponsoring from CERN, EBSCO,
ESF, OAI, SPARC.
• Among the conclusions: Plan for developing an extension
of OAMH protocol for the exchange of QC metadata.
(American Physical Society and the Los Alamos arXiv
volunteer to participate in a prototype!)
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The organisation of quality control
• Researchers take care of writing, e-distribution and
refereeing; why not of organising?
• Existing editorial boards may take charge of new overlay ejournals.
• Learned societies (the ‘roots’ of the journals!) should take
their responsibility for peer review.
• Organisational tools are becoming available (e.g. through
Roquade).
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Economical aspects
• Servers: negligible cost (→author institute).
• Long-term archiving (→National libraries?).
• Peer review organisation is the main cost. Arguments to
charge this to the author:
– it is the author who gets the intellectual reward for the
refereed publication;
– covering the bill should make the author more aware of
the publication cost;
– the dissemination of scholarly work should be
considered to be an essential part of the process of
publicly funded research.
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Author
Editor
Referees
J2
J3
J4
J5
J...
Journal
Bibliographic
Database
DB2
DB3
DB4
Friends
Preprint
Web Archive
A2
A3
A4
A5
Reader
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Author
OAI
A1
Referees
Virtual Journal
A2
A3
A4
A5
S1: Harvester
S2: Harvester
+ Peer Review
S3: Harvester
Reader
+ Citation Analyser
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http://www.dlib.org/
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Exercise 1
Make a list of the journals available in the library for a given
subject category. For each of them try to determine:
- type of journal (review? letter? research communications?)
- commercial publisher or society journal?
- status of peer review?
- annual subscription price (e.g. 2001)
- number of pages per year (e.g. 2000)
- average cost per page
- IP (impact parameter) (see JCR)
- value (IP x pages) per $
Make from these numbers a ranking according to the
importance of these journals.
Suppose your budget will decrease next year with 30%, which
journals do you suggest to cancel?
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Exercise 2
Make a list of the VUB-researchers who in 2000-2001 have
published in your given subject category. (Ask the librarian,
or search in a bibliographic database!) Look up these
publications, and count in them the citations to each journal
from your list of Exercise 1 (irrespective of the year of the
cited article).
For each of the journals in your list determine now
• the total number of VUB-citations in 2000-2001
• the number of VUB-citations per $
• the number of VUB-citations per page published in these
journals
Make from these numbers a ranking according to the
importance of these journals for the VUB. Compare with the
ranking from Exercise 1.
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