1. Confrontation
not
Conversation

2. Ooooooops!

3. I meant…
Conversation
NOT
Confrontation:

4. A report from the May 24, 2006
joint MLA/SSP Session
MLA Annual Meeting
Phoenix, AZ
M.J. Tooey
Immediate Past President, MLA
Executive Director, HS/HSL
University of Maryland Baltimore
June 7, 2006

5. Project Background
• My participation in previous SSP programs
• Meeting with Norman Frankel, Carla Funk
and me last spring
• Follow-up in the fall
• Planning
• Invitations of speakers and audience

6. Participants from MLA
• MLA Board of Directors
• MLA Scholarly Publishing Task Force
• Chairs of Vital Pathways Project Task
Forces
• Chairs of Collection Development,
Technical Services, and Public Services
Sections

7. Participants from SSP
• Norman Frankel
• Margaret Reich
• Panelists
• Ken Fulton - PNAS
• Tom Richardson - NEJM
• Nancy Rodnan – JBC
• Diane Scott-Richter - Blackwell

8. Format for the Day
• Welcome and ground rules (TR – kevlar tie)
• Opening statements from the panelists –
were given questions in advance, 10-15
minutes
• General questions from audience
• Five breakout groups
• Reporting back

9. Key Comments – Ken Fulton
• Biggest issue – access – in what format?
• Public access – author submissions not a
success – 4%, Cornyn-Lieberman
• Scientific conduct – most journals are not
set up to play detective
• Impact of new technologies

10. Key Comments – Nancy Rodnan
• JBC – revenue source for society
• Two review process = declining
submissions
• Open access > main concern = version
control
• Global markets want print
• Will be instituting submission fee in
September

11. Key Comments – Diane Scott-
Richter
• Blackwell works with societies to publish
journals and increase the intellectual
standing of the journals
• Content is no longer king – access is
• Working with societies to digitize backfiles
• Need fewer journals

12. Key Comments – Tom Richardson
• It’s all about change - the pace of change, trying to
manage change and making change part of what
we do everyday
• Public Access – what are the goals we are trying
to reach? Dr. Zerhouni’s goals of creating public
access, a stable archive, data mining of NIH
research – good. Publishers objected to being
dictated to

13. Key Comments/Questions
General Session
• Decontainerization – would any publisher think of
selling parts of articles?
• Comments about how users want to go directly to
article level, bypassing publisher portal and
journal. Similar situation for libraries
• May need multiple formats. Research by Carol
Tenopir suggests browsing in print, subject level
research online

14. General Session
Comments/Questions cont.
• Why are there subscription cost increases? Need
list of reasons subs go up every year. Our budgets
aren’t
• How can publishers help us to educate our
administrators about costs and pricing models?
• Hospital libraries are really pinched
• Interesting comment about changing from a online
pricing model based on print subs. CA move to
value-base subscription studies –
Bergstrom/McAfee

15. General Session
Comments/Questions cont.
• Maybe journals should ask librarians about
features and technology – are they really
needed/desired?
• Unfair pricing – example of smaller university
paying more for less journals than larger
university – set a pricing model so the playing
field is level
• How would publishers like to see the PA policy
implemented?

16. Reporting out from small groups
• Ask us about new features
• Don’t confuse open and public access
• We too are concerned about version control,
linking of errata, maintenance of flawed article
• The ILL question – why can’t we get this
resolved?
• How about pay per view – anybody
implementing?

17. Small groups cont.
• Don’t want publishers to see PubMed Central data – might
be used against us
• Walmart pricing model – lower prices, more customers
• When will societies not publish at all? Could just appear
on web site
• Will there ever be perpetual access? LOCKSS,
CLOCKSS, Portico. Institutional repositories?
• Negotiating of licenses – lawyers, procurement, some
licenses change every year

18. Small groups cont.
• Librarians have to do the work of the subscription
agents and publishers – verifying lists, etc. How
do we get licenses and subscriptions right?
• Learned why there are no ILLs to outside of US
• Bad librarians posting userids and passwords and
not getting copyright permissions for distance ed,
reserves, etc

19. Small groups cont.
• When there is a correction or errata, can we get an
automatic link/update?
• What do users really want in a manuscript?
Would they pay for special features?
• Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism
• Copyright – authors don’t know what they agreed
to – should be able to use their own articles

20. Next Steps…
• Can we hear the recordings?
• Should or could we do this again?
• Inclusion of subscription agents next time?
• How to continue this dialogue?

21. Questions?