This year, the Swedish government to add about 35 billion on research. A wise investment for a country of knowledge. But if the research to be effective, it needs to be spread. It occurs mainly through articles in scientific journals.
In total there are around 28 000 magazines for almost every niche of the research. Every year released about 2.5 million scientific articles in this flood of newly produced knowledge.
All magazines are not created equal. An article in titles such as The Lancet, Nature, Science or Cell can determine a research career. It published there is both rigorous quality reviewed and selected in the extreme competition.
Journal The system is not only a way to disseminate new results, but also the primary way to evaluate research findings. It determines the research that counts. The situation has given the publishers behind the magazines special status.
A special position as they exploited to the maximum, say critics.
– Researchers depend on publishing in these journals. Publishers, which publishes them have virtually a monopoly. It has put higher education is a leghold trap, says Wilhelm Widmark, head librarian at the University of Stockholm.
Publication in a scientific journal is surrounded by special rules. Researchers may, for example, no payment for submissions. They also often the publisher exclusive rights to the article, in any future. And a certain time is an embargo: that is, the article should only be read in the magazine’s own frame.
the peculiar market has meant that publishers have been able to make substantial price increases. The situation in Lund, with a threefold increase in ten years, is also reflected nationally. These practices have brought a storm of criticism in academia.
– Their fees and profit margins are exorbitant, says Anna Lundén, responsible for the national library cooperation at the Royal Library.
Lund University costs subscriptions, e-books and access to online article archive 64 million a year. There is a threefold increase in ten years. It is 38 million clean subscription fees, which the majority goes to the heavy magazine publishers.
Only publisher Elsevier (which gives out the Lancet, Cell and further around 2000 magazines) costing University SEK 15 million annually – or the equivalent twenty librarian services. The average costs rise by five percent a year, far more than the university budget as a whole.
– However, some contracts may increase even more, upwards of fifteen to twenty percent increase is not unusual, says Jette Guldborg Petersen, Chief Librarian Lund University.
– We are forced then to save in other areas.
the Swedish libraries have a joint organization, BIBSAM, which handles the purchase of scientific subscriptions. Bibsams costs follow the same trend as Lund. Since 2005, costs have tripled, 107-325 million.
“It’s a great big problem, but also difficult to access for individual universities. But we have written a petition and are in the lobbying groups to get a change. “Torbjörn von Schantz, president of Lund University. the dependence on certain key titles make a pricing pressures difficult or impossible. Swedish University is in the context of small players. Moreover, it is also prestigious universities like Harvard or Oxford, who also complained about the prices. What might not be so surprising, when access to the main journals can cost as much as $ 100 000 a year.
– Do you want access to Cell Press, you can just buy the package from the publisher Elsevier, says Anna Lunden. And while the researchers believe that they must have the magazines. Therefore we have in ten or twenty years accepted these crazy price increases.
After all, the more money spent on subscriptions, the other costs pulled down.
– priority is given to what is called the b ig deals . Material from small publishers, individual titles, not purchased further in, says Anna Lunden.
– Many critics believe that the humanities and social sciences are losers, because the money goes to the journals in science and medicine, says Anna Lunden.
at Stockholm University has the money gone from the staff to subscriptions.
– We have got to move money within our budget. By digitizing much more efficient, but it has also been necessary to take from the personnel budget, says Wilhelm Widmark.
Small glossary
Scientific journal: A (network) -tidning which publishes new research. Are often extremely niche in a scientific field.
Peer review: A quality control system that other researchers constitutes a kind of committee to assess and approve the articles that get published in the journal.
Impact factor: a total, mathematical measure of how much the articles in a particular journal are cited by other researchers.
Open access: a collective term for research published in the forms so that it can be read freely by all.
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