I wonder sometimes if the somewhat high fees associated with downloading electronic reprints of scientific articles, which in some cases range from $10 to $30 per article, stifle not only the dissemination of science but also the speed and progress of science.
While most scientists at large research universities have institutional subscriptions to many journals, and therefore don’t have to pay extra fees to download individual articles, the majority of the general public does not have this same type of access due to the somewhat high costs associated with institutional and personal journal subscriptions.
In the day of google and wikipedia, individuals are becoming less reliant on “experts” relaying information to them, and are instead investigating and researching questions themselves, with the help of their trusted computer. While individuals can get much useful information from internet search sites and web-based encyclopedias, why should they also not be able to read the latest full-length, peer-reviewed scientific articles, without the fear of going broke pursuing their natural curiosity?
For instance, why should a newly-diagnosed cancer patient be economically discouraged from reading the latest scientific research regarding their certain type of cancer, due to the high costs of electronic reprints?
or
Why shouldn’t a high school student be encouraged to download 5 recent papers related to a particular scientific topic for a mere fee of $1 each? Something that would surely be cost prohibitive at a cost of $10 to $30 each.
Research is published in hundreds, if not thousands, of diverse journals, making personal subscriptions to all of these extremely cost prohibitive to someone in the general public, and the fee for individual scientific article reprints too costly at this time I believe.
To address this need, I’d like for someone to develop (with the publishers) an easily searchable database (in the vein of NCBI’s PubMed), that not only allowed users to freely search and identify relevant scientific articles, but also allowed users to download complete electronic reprints of the articles for $1 or less. Such a model has worked well in the music industry (case in point Apple iTunes) and I sincerely believe that such a model could greatly expand the reach of science in both the worldwide scientific community as well as the general public at large.
Journals may at first be wary of such a proposal, envisioning shrinking profit margins and unsustainable models, but I believe that if the price of scientific reprints were decreased to $1, a model of high price/small market would be gradually replaced with a model of low price/larger market. It’s important for all of us to maintain the journals economic strength and viability, since they are the main source we use to share our scientific work with others, as well as for us to learn about the most current research.
Another complementary model I support, adopted by the open access journals, is to make all articles free of charge, supplemented by author fees or outside grants. Such models are complementary to the $1 reprint, since the end goal is to make scientific literature more accessible to a wider audience. Some journals will thrive under the open access model, while others may need a continued revenue source to maintain viability, but in the end it is important to decrease the fees for scientific reprints to a nominal fee.
I look forward to the day, where anyone can sit down at their computer and download any scientific article for $1 or less.
I agree. I think the situation with music is analogous—except in that case, people have come up with sophisticated and efficient networks for pirating music. But many people think that if the prices come down on music, then companies will make up for it with extra sales.
Some sites are already profiting on this model, such as emusic.com, which sells a subscription for a set number of downloads per month, and the price per song is around $.25—a quarter of what iTunes charges. Emusic doesn’t have the big name pop stars on there—it centers around indie rock—but they still seem to be doing alright, and the number of files on there is increasing quickly.
So could a similar model work for scientific papers? Most journals are not of the level of Science and Nature; they’re more like the equivalent of indie rock bands—despite being owned by huge companies like Elsevier.
But probably scientific publishers are worried that selling papers for $1 will cut into sales of subscriptions. If it costs hundreds of dollars per year for libraries to subscribe to a journal, and it’s one that not many people read, then low prices for papers online might encourage schools’ libraries to cancel their subscriptions. They could tell academics to download just the articles they want to read, which would shift the cost of getting papers from the libraries to the individual research groups. This might cut costs for the school, at least in the short term, and give the public easier access to research papers. But it could be bad for schools, because then they wouldn’t have the entire journals on the shelf for everyone to look at.
So I’m in favor of lower prices for individual papers, but I suppose it might have unintended consequences.
There has been some important policy changes since I first posted the $1 Reprint blog last year, most notably the NIH Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications (Division G, Title II, Section 218 of PL 110-161, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008) which states:
“The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, that the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.”
See: Revised Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research
This is a much needed, positive step in the right direction, and a great asset to all of us interested in research.