Collaboration, Competition, and Controversy. (cover story)

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Author: Drake, Miriam A.1 mdrake@bellsouth.net

REPORT FROM THE FIELD

The annual Association of American Publishers/Professional and Scholarly Publications (AAP/PSP) conference, held Feb. 6-8 in Washington, D.C., was rich in concerns and controversy. The meeting, which revolved around the theme Competitors and Collaborators: Changing Landscapes, included hot topics in meetings and breaks that ran the gamut from the Google Library Project and peer review to born-digital content and government information.

In the opening keynote (Google, the Khmer Rouge, and the Public Good), Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan and a Google project participant, talked about the public goods aspects of the project, preservation, and copyright. She said, "The University of Michigan's partnership with Google offers three overarching qualities that help fulfill our mission: the preservation of books; worldwide access to information; and, most importantly, the public good of the diffusion of knowledge." She pointed out that the university was digitizing brittle books and materials that were in danger well before the Google project began.

Copyright is a key issue in the project. Copyrighted works digitized in the project will be placed in a dark archive and removed when copyright has expired. Coleman, speaking to the heart of the question, said: "Let me assure you, we have a deep respect for intellectual property--it is our No. 1 product. That respect extends to the dark archive and [to] protecting your copyrights."

She added that as a publisher she wanted the University of Michigan Press to succeed. The database for the Google project will include entries for copyrighted works with each record enhanced by a "snippet"--two sentences describing the work. In her discussion of snippets, Coleman indicated that she believed that the project will represent a new business model resulting in a wider market for books.

Audience reactions indicated concern with the snippets, out-of-print works still covered by copyright, orphan works, and uses of copyrighted works. Pat Schroeder, president of AAP, said that publishers favored preservation. The publishers' main concern is that Google is digitizing copyrighted works without permission and that Google will retain the digital copies. AAP and The Authors Guild brought suit against Google for copyright infringement. For more on Coleman's address, see http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb060213-2.shtml.

Brian Crawford (American Chemical Society) presented remarks on peer review and discussed some of the problems science publishers are facing. He pointed out that in the rush to get material out, publishers may be neglecting peer review.

There is public concern reflected in the media about hoaxes, falsification, fabrication, plagiarism, medical misconduct, and scientific misconduct. Conflicts of interest often are not disclosed, for example, when a third party has a vested interest in the results. These incidents appear in the headlines. "We have a problem," he said.

Crawford said that journal editors have to take the warranty of authors regarding their credentials and the integrity of the material. What is the editor's liability? Publishers are powerless to do anything.

"The public does not really know how peer review works," he said. "They envision a jury" where people meet to discuss the article. He added that peer review may not detect fabrication and other problems. Reviewers often do not have the tools to analyze statistical data and other aspects of the material.

Multiple versions of articles add to the problem. In the print world, the published article was the article of record. Now, changes can be made by end users and others. People can build a document from pieces of many documents. "What is the archival document of record?"

The problem is exacerbated by the increasing number of authors worldwide who are submitting more and more articles. Also, "the [W]eb is easy for duplicate submission." The author often will go with the first journal that accepts the manuscript.

Crawford urged the formulation and acceptance of industry standards and guidelines. He cited three examples of agencies working on guidelines. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org) issued uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to medical journals. These requirements cover authors, editors, peer review, and other topics. The International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (http://www.stm-assoc.org) is working on preserving the object of record of science. And the international Federation of Library Associations and Institutions and the International Publishers Association (http://www.ifla.org/ifla-ipa.htm) is working on standards.

In the area of technology, Crawford pointed out that citations and plagiarism can be checked with online tools. More help is needed for authors and reviewers to access raw data and perform analysis and evaluation.

Optics Express (http://www.opticsexpress.org) is a peer-reviewed, fully archived, author-pays, open access, all-electronic journal with multimedia capability. Michael Duncan of the Optical Society of America (OSA) briefly described the history of Optics Express and its success.

The journal was launched in 1997. Duncan said that in the publication's early years, some OSA members were concerned with the author-pays model and viewed it as a vanity press. The journal reportedly broke even from 2003 to 2005. It has experienced huge growth, high impact factor, and high submissions. Duncan attributes its success to a strong champion and focus issues and to attracting authors who want multimedia. The time from an article's submission to its publication averages 55 days.

Duncan spent a few minutes talking about lessons learned: The percentage of articles with multimedia is decreasing, authors will pay for publication speed, and Optical Express competes with the traditional journal Optical Letters (the two journals have similar impact factors).

Victoria Reich, director of the LOCKSS program at the Stanford University Libraries, discussed a new librarian/publisher collaboration called CLOCKSS. Using LOCKSS technology, the new project will support a dark archive to preserve scholarly material including orphaned digital works.

In addition to working toward a production system, the 2-year development phase will test disaster planning, governance, management of a dark archive, and the ability to meet community needs. CLOCKSS, a community-managed project, provides assurance to the research community that a disaster will not prevent access to journal content. Reich said that the success of the project is increasing the odds that tomorrow's readers will find what they want and need.

When Bruce James became Public Printer of the United States 3 years ago, it was evident to Government Printing Office (GPO) watchers that there would be some changes in the way GPO carries out its responsibilities to identify, catalog, and disseminate government information (see Searcher, September 2003, pp. 50-54). Changes have been made and will continue to be made in the way GPO gathers, processes, preserves, and disseminates government information and documents.

In 1993, Congress mandated that the Congressional Record and the Federal Register be made available online for free. There are about 1 million downloads per day from the Federal Register. Ninety-two percent of all federal government documents are available online. The remaining 8 percent represent specialized publications, such as large maps. GPO is working to find ways to make these publications available online. Last month, 50 percent of all government publications were born digital--they will never be printed by the federal government. These digital documents are being archived, and there are now questions about the best way to keep them in perpetuity.

James has also made changes involving private sector printing. He pointed out that the government still does a lot of printing. Last year, 90 percent of government printing requirements went to 2,568 private sector printers around the country. GPO is the world's largest buyer of printing; it buys roughly 1,000 jobs per day. In order to get the best prices, printers' bills are faxed to GPO and paid in 10 days.

Government data is unique. James has been talking with the private sector about creating new products, adding value, and creating new audiences. There is an RFP asking for projects with the private sector ready for issue. This request is currently being reviewed by the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing and is expected to be released soon.

Future developments include print-on-demand and customizing information for members of Congress. Since the GPO offices are located on valuable real estate and GPO no longer needs all the land, it will be developed to bring in revenue and reduce the level of Congressional appropriations needed for GPO operations.

For additional information about the conference or its sessions, visit http://www.pspcentral.org or http://publishers.org.

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By Miriam A. Drake

Miriam A. Drake is professor emeritus at the Georgia Institute of Technology Library. Her e-mail address is mdrake@bellsouth.net. Send your comments about this article to itletters@infotoday.com.