We’re done! It’s over and it was fun. The conference went off without a hitch, we attracted a full house, and were even written up in the Globe! Having had a full weekend to recover from last week’s stresses, I can now calmly sit down and relate my impressions of the event.

The day started off with welcoming comments from Harvard Provost Steven Hyman. He related his experiences with doing research in the pre-digital age, having to go to actual libraries and pull actual, corporeal journals off actual shelves to photocopy articles of interest, praying all along that no one had unceremoniously ripped out that article for their own, exclusive use.

Steven Hyman giving welcome remarks and introducing Harold Varmus.

Harold Varmus gave the keynote address in which he took rather pointed and directed stabs at Elsevier publishers, all the more barb-like considering that Emilie Marcus, the editor of Cell Press (a subsidiary of Elsevier) was sitting in the front row. The sparks continued to fly during the first panel when the pros and cons of open access publishing were debated. A much better summary of the panels than the one I could provide can be found here, here and here. I would rather talk about the behind-the-scenes, the stuff that didn’t get out into the open.

Harold Varmus giving the keynote address.

Harold Varmus answering questions following his talk. Luckily, there was only one crazy lady who yelled things. No one really figured out what those things were.

I had a long conversation with Robert Kiley from the Wellcome Trust before the start of the conference. Through our conversation I got a better idea of just how progressive Wellcome Trust’s policies on science publishing are (all Wellcome funded research has to be published in open access journals. Details on that policy can be found here). I found him to be engaging and thoroughly devoted to the cause of open access. I would have liked to hear more from him on the first panel, but it’s really not his fault – all eyes and ears were on Emilie Marcus.

The most interesting thing I learned (and one I hope I am permitted to disclose) came out of a pre-conference conversation with Mr. Kiley. While Wellcome has not yet released (or collected, not sure which) official data on the percent of labs that keep their promise of publishing in open access journals, the estimates run between just 20 and 40%. I found this to be shocking.

Panel 1. From the left: moderator Kishore Kuchibhotla; Emilie Marcus, Cell Press Stuart Shieber, Harvard University; Isaac Kohane, Countway Library, Harvard University; Robert Kiley, Wellcome Trust

While my initial reaction was to condemn all the cheaters and liars that signed on the dotted line accepting Wellcome’s terms and money but reneged on the agreement, Mr. Kiley was more tolerant in saying that there is simply a lack of understanding in the scientific community of what is being asked of them and what the difference is between open access and traditional models of science publishing. When I asked how Wellcome plans to enforce their rules of open access publishing, Mr. Kiley responded that their current strategy relies more heavily on the “carrot than the stick”. While they have a great deal of weight to throw behind their threats of withdrawing funding, it is in no one’s interest for them to do so.

Panel 2. From the left: moderator Zeba Wunderlich (not pictured); Moshe Pritsker, JoVE John Wilbanks, Science Commons Hilary Spencer; Nature Precedings ; Bora Zivkovic, PLoS ONE

Echoing Harold Varmus’s not-too-cuddly feelings toward Elsevier, Robert talked about how much effort was put into working out an agreement between Wellcome and Elsevier – something like 15 months of continuous negotiations went by before Elsevier agreed to comply with Wellcome Trust’s requirements that publications be made free and available no later than 6 months following the original publication date. Whew. Fifteen months! Wellcome must employ some really patient attorneys.