Publishers bury the case for exclusivity when opposing open access policy mandates

What is the impact of open access (OA) repositories on publishers? It is to give up exclusivity on the content, but not the presentation or the associated services created by the publisher, to one other - and only one - very specific source: the author's institutional repository.

Publishers don't like policies from government, research funders or institutions mandating OA through repository self-archiving because, ironically, these make it more likely that authors will use the self-archiving clauses that most publishers now accept. Still, it gets rather tiring to keep reading the same publisher refrain from any policy initiative - that it will harm business models, cause journal subscriptions to be cancelled, etc. - as in this example. What is the real problem?

Publishers are burying the case for exclusivity beneath speculation on business models and revenues because they know the legislators they oppose won't buy their case otherwise, and neither should anyone else.

A few years ago, had an author posted a paper on a personal Web site then described that as publishing, they would have been laughed at by established publishers. True, posting the paper instead to an IR brings some management and organisation to the process, which is closer to the formal act of publishing, but it is still the author version, shorn of the value-added by journal publication. Or is it? That's for publishers to demonstrate, and it looks like some are not sure they can, hence the recalcitrance from current policy proposals.

Journal value-adding based purely on exclusivity is no value-adding at all. Let those publishers that are confident they add more than that stand up for policy proposals such as the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), and differentiate themselves from those that do not. As Peter Suber has pointed out (see his 'minor tenth' question), some publishers now rushing towards hybrid OA publishing will have some embarrassing moments explaining away their previous antipathy to open access.

For publishers, hybrid open access is currently the big testing ground. It would be best for publishers to look beyond hybrid OA and produce a consistent and coherent, all-inclusive pro-OA policy (bottom-line: unembargoed Romeo green) that will cover them for all future policy decisions regarding OA. Let's just allow those who want to get on with OA to do so, and skip the pandering and prevarication, in everyone's interest.

Postscript. The obvious response to this case is to target one major area of journal value-added and of shared interest between author and publisher: peer review. Authors want it and publishers provide it, or so it seems. Why would publishers continue to provide it if authors could make their peer-reviewed papers available elsewhere?

Coincidentally, the chance to test this arose with a posting to the liblicense list by Peter Banks, former journal publisher and now industry consultant. Banks appeared to say that OA, especially self-archiving in repositories, would lead to the end of peer review as performed by publishers:

"much of what has been written (on OA) is I think based on a false premise: that, in the face of mandated OA, nonprofit and for-profit publishers would continue the work of traditional peer review, the products of which must then be then made freely available.

"In short: Ain't going to happen. No rational organization is going to invest the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year needed to operate, sustain, and upgrade traditional peer review systems for a major journal, when sales of the products that sustain those operations are undermined by free distribution."

In a follow-up message he raised the prospect that nonprofit and for-profit publishers might "cease providing traditional peer review services."

Banks appeared to have separated peer review from the journal, a move that would, on the face of it, end the journal as we know it.

"I'm not aware of any publisher that provides 'peer review services'" I responded. "Most I know provide peer reviewed publication, which is quite different and what the author seeks. So who is peer review for? Not the author, but the publisher. It's the publisher's means of selecting material to maintain and enhance the quality of the journals. So why would publishers cease to provide peer review? Seems rather an empty threat if it's intended to frighten people from open access and OA mandates."

Banks offered a thoughtful and somewhat surprising suggestion, but which is consistent with the consequence of ending peer review, the end of conventional journals: "In the face of mandated OA, publishers should move toward a new business that has a positive ROI. This will probably involve providing context, rather than content. That is, under mandated OA, the business of publishing will no longer be creating quality content, but aggregating it and filtering it from what is freely available on the Web. It is separating the small amount of wheat from the great quantity of chaff."

In other words, not like journals we know at all. But that's all fascinating stuff for the future that many will have fun exploring. For now, OA self-archiving is growing and serious authors and publishers will continue to provide peer-reviewed publication as we know it because that is their business.

Sally Morris of ALPSP, as Banks had done, explained the process of peer review and how much effort publishers expend on it, which is not in question, but added: "And why do publishers do this? Not for the good of their health (or their bank balance)." This latter point is not correct if a publisher's bank balance is tied to profit, founded on successful journals that are in turn bound to peer review.

The point is that peer review is not a bargaining tool. Its role is equally pivotal for authors and publishers. If publishers give up exclusivity, will authors have to forego journal peer review? Simply, no.