The inevitability of free? The inevitability of open access? (Part 1)

Caroline Sutton writes a provocative article in the December 2011 issue of College & Research Libraries News entitled, “Is free inevitable in scholarly communication? The economics of open access.” Drawing on Chris Anderson’s book Free: The Past and Future of a Radical Price (Hyperion, 2009), Sutton makes a bold assertion regarding the economics of academic journal publishing in the online space:

In this article I would like to make the case that a change in the delivery of scientific content and in the business models for delivering scholarly communication was inevitable from the moment journals moved online, even if much of this change is yet to come. By applying a thesis put forth by Chris Anderson in his 2009 book Free, I will argue that given that scholarly journals are now digital products, they are subject to very different economic principles and social forces than their print ancestors.

Anderson’s thesis on competition and pricing in the digital market begins with Bertrand economics, which states that in a competitive market, the price of a product will move toward the marginal cost of producing an additional good. … Because the costs associated with bandwidth, storage, and processing are being reduced by approximately 50% every year, digital products get cheaper every year, and indeed have become so cheap that the marginal cost is so small as to render it near to impossible to measure. … It is for this reason the default price of a digital product is zero: zero is inevitable. …

Scholarly journal articles are no different from any other digital product with respect to distribution costs. As such, one can argue that our product is also subject to the “zero is inevitable” rule of pricing. (p. 642, emphasis added)

Sutton is an open access publisher at Co-Action Publishing and president of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association. She brings significant experience from the commercial publishing world to this issue. In a curious way, although her commitment to open access is strong, Sutton’s assertion gains credibility for me precisely because Co-Action Publishing is run as a for-profit business. While I might base my commitment to open access on more altruistic principles, Sutton and her partners have real money riding on this. (Incidentally, I don’t say this because I believe that risking money indicates a higher level of commitment than altruism. People and businesses squander money on foolish ideas all the time. I simply mean that Sutton isn’t merely offering an interesting thought-experiment or academic exercise. Her argument is tied to her experiences of running a real business in the real world.)

Reading Sutton’s article made me interested in reading Chris Anderson’s book, which I had not gotten around to up to that point, though I’ve had a digital copy of the book in the Kindle app on my iPad for some time. I would like to engage with Anderson’s thesis as it relates to open access scholarly communication a bit myself in a subsequent post. But here let me interact with Sutton’s take on the notion of “zero is inevitable.”

To be clear, Sutton (following Anderson) is not saying it doesn’t cost anything to publish an academic journal. The key situation is that publication of journals in the online environment eliminates costs associated with producing and moving around journal issues as physical objects (paper and ink, printing machinery, warehousing inventory, shipping, etc.). The key concept is “the marginal cost of producing an additional good.” After a journal article has been created and uploaded to a publisher’s server as an electronic file, it costs virtually nothing to “make” an additional copy or copies of that file. The key activity and infrastructure to which the “zero is inevitable” economic principle is applied is the distribution costs—that is, costs associated with getting journal articles out to readers. Yes, would-be readers require access to a computer or smartphone, and an Internet connection. But after that, all they need to be able to do is click a link on a webpage. As Sutton writes:

In addition to staffing and other overhead costs, there are also a number of fixed article and page-related costs (e.g., copyediting, language editing, typesetting, etc.) that must be covered in some way. The point is that these are largely fixed costs that are the same regardless of whether one user finds and downloads a given article or if 5 billion users find and download it. The marginal cost of adding one additional user is for all practical purposes, zero. In this context, charging for access as such involves charging for that which does not cost. (p. 642, emphasis added)

Now stop for a moment and let that last sentence really sink in. “In this context, charging for access as such involves charging for that which does not cost.” This is a remarkable admission for a for-profit publisher to be making! The traditional knowledge-is-a-scarce-commodity-subscription-based-or-pay-per-article-view-model commercial publisher would not want us to know about this. In the physical world, increasing a journal’s subscription base scales to reduce the costs of printing additional copies. But in the online world there are no additional copies to produce. Subscriptions or per-article download fees to cover distribution costs should not be necessary. Incidentally, in case you were still thinking about this from the point of view of the physical world, an online publisher doesn’t “stock” their servers with multiple copies of journal articles waiting to be downloaded like a bookstore stocks their shelves with the latest hardcover bestseller. The duplication happens on the user side when a download link is clicked. With the exception of a copy sitting on a back-up server, there is really only one electronic file required for each article. Further, the size of that file (commonly a PDF) is nearly inconsequential from a storage perspective. So, the costs aren’t merely reduced by scale. They effectively cease to exist! Again, none of this denies the costs incurred by publishers to initially set-up and maintain an online infrastructure, though it is clear that most publishers are now working in a born-digital environment, even if they are still engaged in print publishing. By continuing with subscription-based or pay-per-article-view models in the online space, traditional for-profit publishers are effectively “charging for that which does not cost.” Applying an old model to a new online reality enables them (for the time being, at least) to further reduce their overall bottom-line costs and maximize their profits.

But scholars and libraries are beginning to seriously question the sustainability and fairness of the old model (historically tied—some would say in an exploitative way—to the academic system of peer review and tenure and promotion), especially now that alternatives exist. Sutton has chosen a different approach.

Whether for profit, non-profit, large or small, publishers must have the resources to produce the first copy of an article and all goes with it (not to mention further research and development). The challenge of the digital marketplace, as Anderson points out…is to identify new and creative ways to build businesses and revenues around giving products away. In the case of scholarly publishing, giving away products amounts to open access, and the question is how to “give away” articles yet stay in business.

…

Because there are no additional costs for additional users, we have moved the payment mechanism away from that element in the publishing process that is near zero in cost (digital distribution of articles), and instead applied it to a stage of publishing where we are in fact consuming resources (for preparation of manuscripts for publication and other work). Thus, the article as such is demonetized. (p. 643, emphasis added)

Sutton maximizes distribution through open access. Since the costs associated with adding users is close to zero, her business leverages this “free” aspect to get the word out about her business through the products of the scholars who publish their articles with her. Maximum distribution, including giving permission to authors to self-archive in digital repositories (a problem for many traditional commercial publishers), is reconceptualized as a marketing tool.

Not only is wide distribution a service to our authors, as the number of people who are reading our content grows, it becomes increasingly likely that enough of them will also submit an article to a journal that is accepted by an editor, and for which we can charge a fee and recover our costs. (p. 643)

The use of article processing charges is one way Co-Action Publishing generates its revenue. In the sciences, the costs of article publication can often be rolled into research grant funding. But that doesn’t mean there is no competition in this space to control costs and provide choice.

[W]e regard our work as a service to authors. This is where competition is—in providing customers (authors) with a preferred service at the right price. (p. 643)

Now here is a refreshing perspective—that a publisher would regard the scholar author as a customer to be satisfied because they have a choice, and can take their business elsewhere.

Sutton suggests creative ways to generate additional revenue by offering enhanced features to the author on top of the basic free version of the article.

Repositories might represent a basic version of a service to an author (the possibility of depositing a flat word doc or PDF), while the article on the publisher’s platform is a premium version with added features such as semantic searching, the publisher’s work to distribute the article, etc. that add value to the author’s work, and which he or she may be inclined to pay for. (p. 644)

Sutton admits that many traditionally published top-tiered journals maintain high marginal utility even after moving online because of long-standing reputations and high impact factors that continue to attract the best research. These top journals currently have little incentive to move toward an open access model because they don’t feel the competition. “At its core the scholarly economy is a reputation economy in which prestige ranks before all else” (p. 644). The challenge is to produce open access journals that can compete on prestige by quickly building reputations. Sutton refers to a number of open access journals in biology and medicine published by the Public Library of Science that have managed (in less than 10 years!) to earn top-tier reputations.

Sutton also notes that an open access journal can get a kickstart on reputation by being funded by a prestigious or respected organization in the discipline. I have often thought that in the fields of religion and theology an organization like the American Theological Library Association could lend its credibility to promote the creation of new open access journals. In 2008 they began publishing an open access journal geared to theological librarians, so they are already gaining valuable experience in this alternative space.

Sutton doesn’t reference Anderson on this point (more on this in Part 2), but the currencies of the Web are links and traffic. Links are like citations in scholarly communication. They indicate an author’s presence on the Web. As these links are discovered they drive traffic (measured by clicks), which is really a metric of attention. As attention grows so does reputation, which tends to drive more traffic, further enhancing reputation. In the online environment, prompt publication, broad distribution, and immediate free access (coupled, of course, with competent and engaging research reporting) can help authors (and their associated journals) to build attention and reputation in ways, and at a pace, that authors whose articles are locked behind paywalls of (albeit) prestigious journals cannot do. This, it seems to me, is also an opportunity for open access.

Does Caroline Sutton make the case about the inevitability of free in scholarly communication? Although the transition of academic journals to the online environment is now largely complete, it is still too early to tell how various business models will play out. It does seem beyond question, however, that open access is a viable alternative to traditional subscription-based revenue models. Libraries have long complained about the sustainability of the old model in the face of continually rising prices and shrinking budgets. Too, the scholars themselves, who have long been passive in this relationship, are starting to wake up and some are even revolting against the exploitative practices of many big name commercial publishers, especially around the issues of intellectual property rights, and the abuse of their free labor in peer review. This can only help enhance the case for open access.

The landscape is definitely changing, where creativity and innovation are driving new business models. I mean, who would have thought the day would ever come when the concept of a “for-profit open access publisher” would not be perceived as oxymoronic?

In Part 2, I will share some of the insights for open access journal publishing I gained from reading Chris Anderson’s book for myself. Stay tuned.

A conversation with Ehud Ben Zvi, founder and editor of the open access Journal of Hebrew Scriptures

Worldwide, completely free, and unrestricted access to peer-reviewed journal literature is a social and academic good. It is important for the creation and dissemination of knowledge, and as such to the academic guild and to society in general. It is important for individual researchers, students, libraries, and the general educated public.

This is how Ehud Ben Zvi, Professor in the Department of History and Classics at University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada) opened a paper at the joint meeting of the European Association of Biblical Studies and the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature held at the University of Vienna, July 2007. Ehud Ben Zvi is founder and editor of the open access Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (ISSN 1203-1542).

What is remarkable about the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures is that it was started as an open access online journal in 1996—making it a fairly early online-only journal, and one of the earliest open access journals in religion—well before the term “open access” had entered into common parlance, and even before many scholars had fully acclimated themselves to academic life on the Web. When I sat down with Ehud Ben Zvi for a conversation over Skype in December, I learned that his early appreciation for the potential of this thing called the “World Wide Web” for disseminating knowledge was a natural out-growth of a passion to integrate technology and scholarship.

Omega Alpha (OA): The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (JHS) was started in 1996. Wow! That was pretty early-on in the history of the World Wide Web. I first got online in 1994, and I considered myself to be something of an early adopter. I cannot now recall how I first found out about JHS. Perhaps it was on the B-Hebrew email listserv early in 1997. I do recall my excitement at being able to freely access scholarly articles in Biblical Studies online. How did you get the idea to start an online journal?

Ben Zvi: I started using email in 1989. Early-on I also started using what we called at that time “computerized enhanced teaching,” or something like that. I worked together with a guy in our faculty, Terry Butler. The two of us were all the time thinking about what we can do to use these new technologies to enhance research and teaching.

In 1995, I started thinking about the journal. At that time my idea was—I was of course a bit naive, but not completely naive, as looking back now I’d say we were on target for the most part—that we could do most of the things print journals can do electronically, and do it even better. In what sense better? We felt there would be a wide readership that is not restricted by income, or location—where a person lived. There are many countries where libraries cannot afford to buy our journals. Also, it would be available to any scholar 24/7. They would not have to go to the library to check it out. We also felt this would bring prompt, faster publication. I was convinced, and I am still convinced that knowledge emerges out of conversation. So, the more scholars who can read each other’s work, and the faster we publish, the more we advance knowledge through discussion and conversation.

We also thought that an electronic journal is different from a printed one in that there is no “quarter to fill.” We don’t have to say, “We have to publish 200 pages.” We can publish as many articles as are worthy of being published. Or vice-versa, we can have as few as are worthy of being published with no problem. The ability to be free in this way is a great advantage. Also, there is no necessary requirement on article length. The article can be as long or as short as it should be.

Now, there were a few things that I was not completely aware of in 1995, like the importance of a style guide, and the importance of the issues associated with article curating and archiving, which we are very well aware of now, and have taken very good care. We also felt that we wanted to try to accommodate everyone. So we started publishing in PDF, Microsoft Works, WordPerfect, and HTML for every single thing. Of course now it sounds ridiculous. Why would you do that?! But at that time we didn’t know which platforms would win the day. You couldn’t be sure whether it would be Microsoft Office or WordPerfect. People will become comfortable with PDF, or something else will emerge very quickly. There was the idea that some people don’t like PDF, they like HTML and the immediacy this format gives to a document. We played a little bit with that. But already at the beginning it was also true that we decided our “official” version will always be the PDF. All the other versions were a kind of “enhancement,” or a “walking towards the reader.” Eventually we stopped “walking towards the reader” and published just the PDF version.

So, this basically was our way of thinking as we led up to starting the journal. I talked with several people, and received responses from many of my colleagues, and we agreed that, yes, the time was right. We can do it. The Department of History and Classics was very supportive. University of Alberta agreed to host the journal site and provide technical support.

OA: That’s interesting. So you were sort of acting from an intuition about what the Web could provide as a platform, and you took advantage of that. Now, looking back, we call this “open access.” But that terminology wasn’t common, if at all, in 1995-96.

Ben Zvi: Yes, we called it “freely available on the Net.”

OA: You mentioned that you weren’t constrained by a pre-determined format. I noticed early-on that JHS appeared as individually published articles. This is not how we are accustomed to thinking about a journal, particularly in print. Most journals appear as published issues of collected articles. This is required of print because you have to have a minimum number of articles in order to fill a worthwhile and reasonable-sized “container”—you mentioned 200 pages before. How did you arrive at the idea of publishing articles for your journal instead of gathering articles into issues?

Ben Zvi: Yes, you have to have issues in print journals. But for an electronic journal there is no academic reason why you must have issues, unless you have a series of thematic articles, in which case, of course, you would want to publish them together. It is, however, a good idea to have volumes because people have to have a way to find the journal. So although we got rid of the idea of the issue we didn’t get rid of the idea of the volume.

OA: I noticed some of your earlier volumes encompassed a number of years. But recently, it appears that a volume is one year, regardless of the number of articles.

Ben Zvi: We started with a volume being two years, and then we moved to a volume per year, especially as we got more articles.

OA: Yes, the increase in the number of articles seems to reflect the growth of the journal. Can you speak to how that “critical mass” developed? How did scholars begin to discover and then become interested in publishing with JHS? Indeed, now, as you say, the volume seems to take care of itself.

Ben Zvi: Initially, for many scholars the idea of publishing articles in an electronic journal was a difficult concept to grasp. For others, the idea was easy enough to grasp, but they said, “If I publish there I will not get tenure, or promoted, or whatever.” I think that by the early 2000′s we finished that debate. But we were proactive in the mid-90s. What we did first was create a very good editorial board. This was crucial. We had a good system of referees with very good people. We asked some top scholars to publish in the journal, and they were willing to do this in the early stages. And then people started reading articles, and the journal became more and more respected.

We, like any traditional journal have a quite high number of rejected articles. Of course, the point isn’t to say we reject you more than the other. This is not the issue. We also try, particularly with younger scholars, to offer helpful comments. So even if we don’t publish your submission, at least we will give you some comments that may help you publish with us later, or elsewhere. I see this as the formative part of the process, particularly with younger colleagues. We have a blind peer review process. It’s basically exactly the same as any journal like JBL or JSOT. From the very beginning we wanted to have something exactly like the other journals.

OA: Do you feel you are providing an opportunity for younger scholars to get published?

Ben Zvi: Yes, we want to publish younger scholars. We want to publish people from around the world. We want, of course, to publish senior scholars, too. The idea is to have a general conversation on the key issues. We want to hear from well-established voices and new voices. Of course, what is most important is the quality of the articles.

OA: Can you speak more about the issue of discoverability? How do scholars find their way to JHS?

Ben Zvi: It’s not a problem. We’re in all the major indices. By the way, we also exist in a print version. All the stuff that appears in the electronic version also appears in print with the delay of a year. Some people go to the print version if this is what they want. But the electronic version is the version that is permanent.

OA: It’s almost like you are working in reverse of the traditional model.

Ben Zvi: Yes, we work in reverse in that sense. The print version is really nice, and we’d like libraries to have it. But it’s secondary to the main journal.

OA: Do you have any other open access projects underway?

Ben Zvi: I have two projects going. I’m the head of the Society of Biblical Literature’s International Cooperation Initiative (ICI). We have a huge depository of electronic books from a number of publishers that is growing by the month. These books are open access, freely available on the Net for people in ICI qualifying countries, which are countries whose GDP is substantially lower than the average GDP of the United States and the European Union. In addition, with a colleague of mine, I’m the co-general editor of a new monograph series, also at SBL, that is open access. It is called the Ancient Near East Monograph Series. These volumes are available electronically open access, or people can buy the volumes in a print version. So you get the best of both worlds. The text is exactly the same in both versions.

Also, in JHS we have been developing a system of hyper-texting. [Note: The paper by Ehud Ben Zvi referenced above addresses this hypertext project.] What we have done, with the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, is create hypertexts for our articles. This is something that takes a lot of time and effort. But it allows things that the published text cannot do, like clicking on a verse reference to get the scripture text in Hebrew or different translations, or clicking on the name of an author to see what this author has written. It’s quite good, and provides basic information for the scholar working from his desktop. We have contacted people and institutions who have significant open access databases, and we are beginning to create a network. It’s a work in progress. It takes a lot of work, but I think it’s worthwhile. It’s going beyond the “Gutenbergian model” of the printed page. The basic PDF is just the “Gutenbergian model” with some search capability. The hypertext version, based on XML, expands that. We are trying to remain in the forefront of trying new things. But again, this is in addition to the PDF version of our journal, which is still the official version.

OA: Do you have any thoughts regarding societies, associations, or university or college institutions that have, for whatever reason, turned their publishing operation over to a commercial publisher?

Ben Zvi: I have nothing whatsoever against commercial publishing. In fact, I think that no one will gain anything if the SBL publishing house is broke, or if de Gruyter is broke, or Brill is broke. This will not be good for any field of research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. I really wish them well, and I will try to help them as much as possible. Good academic publishers are a part of the academic world, and we need them. Now at the same time, we have other social responsibilities, like our electronic journal, or the ICI e-book depository, or the open access monograph series at SBL. We have an obligation to make at least some of our research available in open access. It’s not that we come to replace commercial publishers. We work together. The scholarly “ecosystem” includes both commercial publishers and open access journal and monograph initiatives.

OA: Do you have any other recommendations to share with scholars or institutions who might be interested in getting an open access journal going? I’m also thinking here about funding for and the sustainability of such an effort.

Ben Zvi: You must have a long-term commitment from your university, or department, or both. If your institution does not support you it’s not sustainable. There are also granting agencies that might be able to assist. The other thing to keep in mind is that these [open access] journals are basically a work of love. You have to have a group of people who feel this is important and are willing to work for that—colleagues who are really willing to work for that and volunteer the necessary time. Anything that depends on only one person is, by definition, not sustainable. You can’t do this alone. In the past I’ve had very good colleagues working with me. And now Christophe Nihan [University of Lausanne] is my Associate General Editor, and we work very well together. We have a very large Advisory Board. We have review editors in different parts of the world. Everyone is doing their job. It’s a team effort.

OA: Professor Ben Zvi, I’ve really appreciated our time together. Thank you for sharing about the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures.

Not entirely off-topic: The Research Works Act

On December 12, 2011, Rep. Darrell E. Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) co-sponsored a bill referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform called the Research Works Act (H.R. 3699). The official title of the bill as introduced is: “To ensure the continued publication and integrity of peer-reviewed research works by the private sector.”

The text of the bill—remarkably short as some bills go—sets forth a limitation on the action of the federal government, specifically, that “no Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that–

(1) causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher of such work; or

(2) requires that any actual or prospective author, or the employer of such an actual or prospective author, assent to network dissemination of a private-sector research work. (emphasis added)

The bill defines ‘private-sector research work’ (from Section 3: Definitions) as

an article intended to be published in a scholarly or scientific publication, or any version of such an article, that is not a work of the United States Government (as defined in section 101 of title 17, United States Code), describing or interpreting research funded in whole or in part by a Federal agency and to which a commercial or nonprofit publisher has made or has entered into an arrangement to make a value-added contribution, including peer review or editing. Such term does not include progress reports or raw data outputs routinely required to be created for and submitted directly to a funding agency in the course of research. (emphasis added)

According to this definition, once a publisher “adds value” to a research work (article) through publication, which it states also includes “peer review or editing,” that work becomes “private-sector” property to control as it sees fit, even if the research behind the published article was funded by a public-sector (federal government) agency grant. The definition does not claim that the research itself becomes private-sector property, only the published article.

The bill would limit the capacity of the federal government to require online (“network”) dissemination of said “value-added” articles from the author(s) of the research, his/her employer (e.g., college or university), or the publisher “without prior consent.” This proposed legislation appears to be in direct response to mandates from federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that require all publicly funded research to be made publicly accessible. For example, the NIH Public Access Policy 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. (emphasis added)

The point of conflict would seem to be the government mandate that research grantees submit “final, peer reviewed manuscripts” to an open access repository (PubMed Central in the case of NIH funding), while the peer review process is being claimed as a critical value-added contribution of the publisher. The legislation sides with publishers against public access to maintain the “integrity” of the peer review process. But there is more. Once you take out the bit about peer review, the legislation seeks “to ensure the continued publication of research works by the private sector.” In other words, this legislation is aimed at limiting the government’s capacity to threaten a well-established, and up to now, very profitable academic publishing business model.

I can certainly understand public-sector academic publishers being unhappy with a government mandate that requires them to make the published results of publically-funded research freely and openly accessible. They are after all in the business of selling journal subscriptions and pay-for-view articles, not giving stuff away. The Association of American Publishers, which includes many academic publishers, has recently come out in vociferous support of the Research Works Act precisely along these lines. (Note: Not all members support the position taken by the AAP. You can follow this story, including reports of AAP member defections on Richard Poynder’s blog Open and Shut?) On AAP’s website we read:

The [Research Works Act] is aimed at preventing regulatory interference with private-sector research publishers in the production, peer review and publication of scientific, medical, technical, humanities, legal and scholarly journal articles. This sector represents over 1.3 million articles published annually which report on, analyze and interpret original research; more than 30,000 U.S. workers; and millions of dollars invested by publishers in staff, editorial, technological, capital and operational funding of independent peer review by specialized experts. North American-based science journal publishers alone account for 45% of all peer-reviewed papers published annually for researchers worldwide.

“The professional and scholarly publishing community thanks Representatives Issa and Maloney for supporting their significant investments that fund innovations and enable the essential peer-review process maintaining the high standards of U.S. scientific research,” said Tom Allen, President and CEO, Association of American Publishers. (emphasis added)

But wait a minute. Although, as Michael Eisen, co-founder of the Public Library of Science (an open access publisher) acknowledges in a January 10, 2012 New York Times op-ed piece that journals manage the peer review process,

it is carried out almost entirely by researchers who volunteer their time. Scientists are expected to participate in peer review as part of their employment, and thus the publicly funded salaries most of them draw through universities or research organizations are yet another way in which taxpayers already subsidize the publishing process. (emphasis added)

The so-called “integrity” in peer review that this legislation claims private-sector publishers are contributing as a “value-add” is actually a service provided at no cost by scholars/researchers. It is this unpaid labor that lends credibility to an academic journal, and profits (in some cases, enormous profits) to commercial publishers. So again, if we strip out the peer review bit, this legislation is really about maintaining a long-standing business model of publishers. We might ask: Is it only government interference that commercial publishers are concerned about, or are they also seeking government protection against a fearful disruption by new attitudes and approaches in scholarly communication? Michael Eisen (continuing in his New York Times piece) contends that the scholarly community shouldn’t wait for Congress to do the right thing by rejecting this bill.

For too long scientists, libraries and research institutions have supported the publishing status quo out of a combination of tradition and convenience. But the latest effort to overturn the N.I.H.’s public access policy should dispel any remaining illusions that commercial publishers are serving the interests of the scientific community and public.

Researchers should cut off commercial journals’ supply of papers by publishing exclusively in one of the many “open-access” journals that are perfectly capable of managing peer review (like those published by the Public Library of Science, which I co-founded). Libraries should cut off their supply of money by canceling subscriptions. And most important, the N.I.H., universities and other public and private agencies that sponsor academic research should make it clear that fulfilling their mission requires that their researchers’ scholarly output be freely available to the public at the moment of publication.

Does this have anything to do with scholarly communication in religion and theology?

Eisen’s challenge and encouragement to his colleagues in the sciences is the turn that brings me back to my claim at the top that this post is not entirely off-topic. It is surely true that scholars, libraries, and theological and religious academic institutions “have [also] supported the publishing status quo out of a combination of tradition and convenience.” Although our relationship with journal publishers in religion and theology is frequently positive, especially among the smaller commercial and society publishers, it is also true that librarians have been feeling an increasing budget squeeze, even as we have witnessed (and lamented) numbers of our journals turn their operations over to large commercial publishers. When profit is clearly the motive, we might arguably inquire into a more basic kind of “integrity” and ask whether supporting the status quo any longer fits into our scholarly mission.

Admittedly, inertia is a powerful force, and it takes a fair amount of courage to cancel long-standing journal subscriptions as an act of protest. But as to encouragement, I concur with Eisen that we are “perfectly capable of managing peer review.” We have the expertise, and we have an engaged community of competent scholars with whom we can work. What we need is to come together to support and develop new instruments of scholarly communication. With Eisen, my vote is for open access.