New Technology-Driven Dynamics in Scientific and Scholarly Communication

Paul Metz, director, Collection Development and College-based Services, University Libraries

Gail McMillan, director, Digital Library and Archives, University Libraries

Tim Luke, University Distinguished Professor, Political Science

Stuff Everybody Knows

Journals have proliferated Some of this legitimate Some of it is exploitative

Serials costs are out of control (ca. 11%/yr.)

Libraries have not been able to keep up It’s crazy to buy back the product we

give away for free

The Baby in the Bath Water

We do need some sort of peer review

Journals add other values besides quality control

The work is labor-intensive

Advantages of the Web

Speed Ubiquity Updates, corrections, dialogue Links Largely unexplored possibilities (A/V,

rotations, nano-trips, raw data) Just maybe an opportunity to start over

and avoid our past errors

3 Perspectives

Library as information gateway - Paul Library as active participant, broker,

publisher - Gail Scholar’s perspective on both reading

and writing - Tim

Virginia Tech Libraries: Effects of the Crisis in Scholarly & Scientific Communications

Have cut many serials Have lost ground in book buying Without new dollars, larger cuts still

ahead

Serials Cancellations, Serials Cancellations, 1990’s1990’s

Year Titles Dollars Cut

1991 1,253 $315,000

1995 1,471 $452,000

1997 777 $621,000

1998 1,292 $566,000

TOTAL 4,793 $1,954,000

2002 1,300 $1,000,000

Meanwhile:Meanwhile: Funds for book buying declined through the

1990’s, even in unadjusted dollars.

We lost our position as a 2:1 net lender of materials to other institutions, becoming instead a net borrower.

We now get less than half as many books as NC State and about 30% fewer serials.

Major Changes: Web Technology

A & I layer is now electronic College librarians become viable Multi-institution networking is more

feasible (witness VIVA)

What the Library Accomplished

Indexes in virtually all disciplines are available remotely

Reference resources Subject-specific web pages Remote services We have 2,900+ ejournals 19,000+ ejournals through aggregators

2,900+ fully owned journals

These include:

E-versions of print journals Retro republishing of print journals E-only journals Societal and forward-looking Same old carnivores

Other Advantages of the Web

We have lots of links – citation to text – text-to-text

We can meter what’s used like never before

VT Scholarly CommunicationsLibrary adapts traditional publishers’ roles

Gail McMillan

director, Digital Library and Archives, University Libraries

Tempe PrinciplesEmerging Systems of Scholarly Publishing

Contain publishing costs Electronic publishing

– wider access to scholarship

– encourages interdisciplinary research

– enhances interoperability and searchability--standards

Archives must be secure, remain permanently available Quality

– Time from submission to publication should be reduced and consistent with quality control

– Continue to evaluate quality of scholarly work – Faculty evaluation should emphasize quality of publications

more; quantity less

TP (cont.): Copyright and Fair UseBalance for both owners and users

Assure faculty access to and use of their own published works in their research and teaching

Faculty should negotiate publishing agreements that promote use of their work

Choose journals that support the goal of making scholarly publications available at reasonable costs

Alternative Models Addressing the Journal Crisis

NEAR: David Shulenburger, Provost, University of Kansas

Charles Phelps, Provost, University of Rochester

ARL: Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition

Los Alamos National Laboratory

National Institutes of Health

National Electronic Article Repository

– http://www.arl.org/newsltr/202/intro.html

Separate peer review and distribution

– http://www.arl.org/202/phelps.html

SPARC

Online preprints: Open

Archives Initiative – http://www.openarchives.org/

PubMed Central– http://www.nih.gov/about/director/

pubmedcentral/

pubmedcentral.htm

Digital Library and Archives Ejournal Accesses

1,879,552

3,122,290

359,819

575,942

1,016,015

-

500,000

1,000,000

1,500,000

2,000,000

2,500,000

3,000,000

3,500,000

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Access to VT ETDs

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Total requests 37,171 247,537 465,974 1,190,113 1,894,510

Daily requests 102 685 1,722 3,016 5,176

ETD requests 4,600 72,854 244,987 671,981 734,807

Abstract req. 25,829 112,633 177,647 217,796 320,273

Hosts served 9, 015 22,725 28,022 35,593 105,632

1990-1994: paper TD circulated 2-3/yr• VT theses submitted 1990-94: combined average circulation was

2.24/yr per copy• VT dissertations submitted 1990-94: combined average circulation

was 3.2/yr per copy

Change Scholarly Communications

VT has the expertise-- Library -- Digital Imaging

-- CDDC -- Broadcast Communications

-- DLRL -- Information Systems

-- Educational Technologies Faculty must help Take the risk--VT is not alone

Scholar’s Perspective:Changing Reading and Writing

Dr. Timothy Luke

University Distinguished Professor

Political Science

CDDC Hits and Page Views

0100000200000300000400000500000600000700000800000

CDDC: Total Statistics

7,818,591 Total Hits 1,462,840 Total Pages 400Mbit per day average

transfer 800+ Hits on Major Search

Engines 500+ Links to CDDC

Fastsearch Canonical Return

www.vt.edu has 6601 scholar.lib.vt.edu 2036 www.cddc.vt.edu 1161 www.dlib.vt.edu 37

Alignments Art in the Public Interest Association of Internet Researchers Center for Theory, University of Texas at Arlington Community Arts Network Critical Theory Institute U.C. Irvine Internet Society Internet Societal Task Force NewMediaStudies.org School of English, Film, and Theater Studies, Victoria University of

Wellington New Zealand Resource Center for CyberCulture Studies Theory, Culture and Society at Nottingham Trent University UK Ultibase at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) Australia

University Initiatives Choices and Challenges Archive of Center for Science

in Society EEDDLL IPS, Certificate program in Information, Policy and

Society JHSB Learning Online and Learning 2000 Archives OLMA, PSCI the Award Winning Online M.A.: Dept. of

Political Science New River: Journal of Hypertext Literature: Dept. of

English Political Theory: Dept. of Political Science

Non-Virginia Tech Collections Association of Internet Researchers Conference page Association of Internet Researchers Online Graduate Student Seminar Association of Internet Researchers Conference Archives Conference Group for Theory, Policy, and Society Digital Government Initiative Encoded Eye Feminist Theory Website Illuminations Knownet Marxists.org Project Gutenberg Situationist International Unit for Theory Software

– Linux Archives, X11, Kernel.org– GNU Software– CPAN– Python.org