A row has broken out over whether all scientific papers in the biosciences should be placed in a single web library and made available free of charge to everyone.
Backers of the idea state their case in the journal Science alongside counter-arguments from the journal鈥檚 own editors.
Controversially, supporters of the idea urge other scientists to sign a petition calling for the library, and to boycott journals unwilling to participate in the scheme. On Monday, the number of signatures collected stood at 11,939.
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The proposed archive, called 鈥淧ubMed Central鈥�, was set up by Harold Varmus when he was director of the US National Institutes of 午夜福利1000集合. Major journals which already deposit their papers there include the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the British Medical Journal.
Ease and equality of access
鈥淚f it鈥檚 in a central archive, it would be much easier to search between papers and journals,鈥� says Rich Roberts of New England Biolabs in Beverly, Massachusetts, and a prime backer of the idea.
Researchers in developing countries who cannot afford expensive subscriptions to leading journals would have the same degree of access as researchers in rich countries. 鈥淚t would be a great equaliser,鈥� says Roberts.
However, 厂肠颈别苍肠别鈥檚 editors are more equivocal about the idea. 鈥淭here鈥檚 nothing wrong with the idea broadly stated,鈥� says Donald Kennedy, the editor. 鈥淓veryone likes the idea of having a public library of science.鈥�
鈥淏ut for us, the economics are important,鈥� he says. He points out that Science is run by the American Association for the Association of Science and earns the revenue to keep it going through subscriptions and advertising. These sources could dry up, he fears, if it ceded control of its archives to a third party.
He says that it costs money and takes enormous skill to guide scientific papers through the peer review process and to get them properly checked and edited.
Specialist journals would suffer too, he thinks. With their 鈥渃rown jewels鈥� displayed to all and sundry on the new site, journals would lose their core subscriptions from libraries.
Monopoly rights
Roberts鈥� solution is a compromise allowing all contributing journals to wait until six months after publication before depositing their papers in PubMed Central. 鈥淲e think six months is a good lifetime and gives the journal monopoly rights for that time,鈥� he says.
Roberts believes that scientists and libraries will not cancel subscriptions because the pace of science is so fast that they won鈥檛 want to wait the six months before they see the papers. In a concession to this demand, Science has agreed to allow all its own papers to be accessed free of charge 12 months after publication, from its own web site. But Roberts is not impressed.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a step in the right direction but it doesn鈥檛 help the central archive because they鈥檒l keep it on their own website,鈥� he says. Roberts adds this would defeat one aim, as cross-searching would still be difficult.
Science also has misgivings about depositing all the world鈥檚 scientific literature on a government-run website, which in theory could be vulnerable to political intervention. It says that a non-profit site similar to that envisaged already exists, called High-Wire Press. Science contributes to it already, as do 230 other journals.
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