More journals to go

DANIEL McCABE | Sales representatives from academic journal publishers such as Elsevier probably avoid dark alleys when they visit university campuses. It's hard to think of a group who are less loved by scholars and scientists.

The issue of the pricing of journals is hardly a new one. "Ten years ago, when I was working in the Faculty of Medicine, I was writing about the serials crisis," notes Frances Groen, the director of libraries.

But the issue has heated up again on campus in the wake of a 25 per cent cut in the libraries's budget for serials, a cut that is sparking an outcry from faculty, particularly in the Faculty of Science.

"It shocked a lot of professors," says Dean of Science Alan Shaver. "And I understand the cut next year could be as big or bigger."

During last week's session of Senate, Shaver called on McGill to declare a moratorium on future cuts to journals and assemble a task force to examine the situation and devise strategies for coping with the crisis.

"If we keep doing this, at some point, the journal collection will be irrelevant. People won't be using the libraries. There won't be anything there that they want any more.

"This is important enough for us to increase our deficit and I don't say that lightly," says Shaver.

Groen says the cuts were anything but pleasant to make. "The administration has made it absolutely clear that we have to balance our budget," says Groen. "Every now and then, we need to be cruel."

Groen is well aware of the importance of journals to the academic community. And she says the administration is sympathetic to the libraries' overall collections woes.

She credits the administration for taking steps, particularly in the early '90s, to increase the libraries budget, but the end result has been a one-step-forward, two-steps-backward scenario.

For one thing, the overall budget cuts imposed by Quebec City this decade have taken a powerful toll just as the administration pointed to the libraries as a priority for new funding. With a drastic reduction in its resources, the University could only do so much to spare the libraries.

In addition, the price of journals keeps going up. It's a moving target. Whenever more money is allocated to help cope with the expense of journals, the sum quickly becomes insufficient as prices continue to escalate.

"The cost of some journals increases by about 20 per cent on an annual basis. The situation in science, technology and medicine is particularly difficult," says Groen.

Another factor, says physics professor Martin Grant, the former chair of the Senate Committee on the Libraries, has been the dwindling value of the Canadian dollar south of the border, since many of the journals originate in the U.S.

"The first thing the libraries did was to cut all the journals that maybe we shouldn't have subscribed to in the first place," relates Grant. "We're beyond that now. Every further cut is going to hurt.

"If you look at schools like the University of Toronto, we're just not competitive at all. We're not players in the same leagues.

Professor Don Kramer, chair of the Department of Biology, says it's important not to point an accusatory finger at the libraries. "They've been put in a desperate situation."

In fact, he credits the libraries with taking the time to consult units about which titles were more valuable than others.

The cuts were still severe.

"We've had to lose journals that are core titles," laments physical sciences and engineering librarian Hanna Waluzyniec.

On the chopping block, for instance, is Tetrahedron, a bundle of five related titles that cost $36,829 a year.

In a McGill libraries planning report released in August, the libraries compare their serial holdings (print publications, microform and electronic) with those of other similar Canadian research universities. The average size of holdings for the schools was 21,088. For McGill, the number was 16,787.

Help is on the way.

As part of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, McGill helped secure a successful grant application from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation to the tune of $20 million. Once provincial governments and member institutions kick in their portions, the libraries will have $50 million at their disposal.

The money will be used to negotiate site license agreements with the companies who produce scholarly publications. Once the deals are signed, universities ought to have access to a wide range of titles electronically.

Negotiating as a consortium "will give us leverage," says Groen. Still she realizes, "the licenses won't come cheaply." While universities see online access to journals as an opportunity to start afresh -- to get better deals from the publishers -- the publishers themselves are reluctant to see that happen.

The grant also only covers three years. What happens after that?

"The electronic library is held out as a solution, but scientists tend to be sceptical. They say, 'show me,'" asserts Shaver.

"Will it be a suitable substitute," he wonders about the CFI initiative. "When will it result in anything?"

The bargaining with publishers will start soon, says Groen. Some licenses ought to be in place early in the new year. "I'm really pushing for that."

Kramer says many science professors are wary of the move from print to electronic.

"For one thing, it affects your ability to scan through several publications to see if there is anything of interest."

"If we cancelled a journal and we're able to get access to it back [through the CFI grant], maybe it's not super convenient, but it's better than nothing," says Grant.

Groen knows online access isn't popular among some professors, but she says others prefer it. "Junior faculty in particular like the notion of having [the journals] delivered right to their desk top. They're delighted."

The issue of the journals' costs goes beyond McGill, of course. A movement has begun among professors to retain their copyright of a paper when they publish, instead of handing it over to publishers as is generally the case now.

The move, theoretically, would give academics more control over how their work is used and how much journals could charge for using it. The Senate Committee on Libraries recent annual report called on McGill administrators to work with colleagues at other universities to look into what can be done.

"I'm pretty sure that something's going to happen," says Grant. "There is lot of pressure in the U.S. right now to withhold copyright."

Floyd Bloom, editor of Science, doesn't think the idea is a good one.

"The price of journal subscriptions would be no cheaper were authors to retain copyright; in fact if that were the case and a special license were required to use the authors' information in print, in electronic form, and in derivative products, it might well be more expensive.

"Furthermore, if libraries continue to cut their expenditures, the remaining journals will simply have to increase their prices. Whose choice is it for libraries to cut their budgets? Surely not the publishers."

There are other approaches that have loosened the grip of publishers on the dissemination of scholarly knowledge.

Grant's fellow physicists have created a popular web site where researchers have free access to pre-published versions of colleagues' research from around the world.

Grant says such an approach is useful in making research results more widely available to the academic community, but it can't really take the place of the established journals.

"For one thing, the journals are refereed." Each article that is published is scrutinized by respected experts in the same field as the author to ensure that the work is, in fact, worthy of publication.

The big name journals also have cachet.

"I want a maximum number of people to read my papers. If I want that, I have to send them to journals where I know they'll get read. I don't want to send them some place where nobody will read them. "

Kramer says academics will likely continue to want to be published in the same journals that charge universities exorbitant prices. "It affects the way you're evaluated by your peers," says Kramer, of being published in a major journal. It also affects the way you're viewed when you apply for grants or promotions.

Grant says that there are generally two categories of academic publishers. There are not-for-profit scholarly associations who channel revenues into "good works." And then there are the large, for-profit companies like Elsevier who publish dozens of journals and dominate the market. "The profit margins can be as high as 40 per cent," says Grant. "It's a great business to be in."

Kramer says the for-profit publishers have their rationalizations for their costs.

"They point to the high cost of publishing. They argue that organizations like university presses who publish on a not-for-profit basis enjoy subsidies from universities, things like free rent. They say they often have to pay their editors [a task often done on a volunteer basis in not-for-profits]. They say they put more into the product, that what they publish is higher-quality."

Kramer was recently involved in the development of a new journal as a response to the high cost of the major publication in his field, produced on a for-profit basis by Springer Press.

"It was getting to the point that so few people in the field could afford to subscribe to [Springer's publication] that the field itself was being held back," says Kramer.

The new journal, published by Oxford Press, has been a success, and has offered scholars a new reputable vehicle for disseminating their work. But it hasn't displaced the Springer publication. "There is now another outlet. They exist side by side. We're now the second publication in the field."

Like it or not, the for-profit publishers are firmly in place and ready to take on challenges to their dominance.