AnthroSource Steering Committee Letter to the AAA

[Kerim Friedman]

Last week the AnthroSource steering committee released an important
public statement to the AAA. You can read it online here:

http://www.aaanet.org/press/ASSCletter.htm

I've included the full contents of the letter below.

I strongly urge everyone to encourage discussion of this letter in
their various sections at the AAA.

- Kerim
(Apologies for cross-posting. But I felt it was important.)


To: Alan Goodman, President, American Anthropological Association
       Deborah Heath, Chair, AAA Committee on Scientific Communication (CSC)
Fr:  Suzanne Calpestri, Chair AnthroSource Steering Committee (ASSC)
Re: AAA and Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (FRPAA)
Cc: Bill Davis, Executive Director, American Anthropological Association
     Jasper Simons, Dir. of Publications, American Anthropological Association
      AnthroSource Steering Committee listserv

I am writing at the suggestion of Deborah Heath who has indicated that
it would be useful to have a statement clarifying the views of the
AnthroSource Steering Committee regarding FRPAA (
http://cornyn.senate.gov/doc_archive/05-02-2006_COE06461_xml.pdf)  to
which the AAA staff  expressed opposition by signing a letter from the
American Association of Publishers (AAP).
(http://www.pspcentral.org/).   Subsequently the AAA staff prepared a
FAQ  (link to FAQ ) explaining their opposition to the legislation.
The Steering Committee's views on the legislation itself and the
substantive issues raised in the AAP letter and the AAA staff FAQ
follow.

In early May 2006 The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006
(FRPAA) was introduced into the U. S. Senate by Senators John Cornyn
(R-TX) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT).  This legislation would require
that federally funded research appearing in peer-reviewed journals be
made openly accessible in digital repositories (either centralized
subject-based or institutional repositories) within six months of
publication.   The legislation does not affect copyright and
specifically excludes from deposit research notes, source data and
preliminary analyses, classified or revenue-producing research and
rejected manuscripts or manuscripts that were not submitted to a
journal.

Why ASSC supports FRPAA

The ASSC stands in strong support of FRPAA because this legislation
provides strategic infrastructure and impetus for achieving
AnthroSource's (and the AAA's) mission regarding "increase[d]
visibility of and access to anthropological knowledge."  In addition,
by removing barriers to access, FRPAA enables the "development of
global communities of interest based on anthropological knowledge."

Of foremost importance, this legislation provides scholars increased
access to the research of others so that they can build on that work
and achieve greater understanding and better outcomes.  Included among
those who gain the most are those working outside major research
institutions (for example, those working in small to medium size
institutions, practicing anthropologists, and those working in
developing countries).  Other significant beneficiaries of interest to
anthropologists are the communities of people in whose midst and with
whose assent and help anthropologists conduct their studies.

Further FRPAA/OA provides authors increased visibility and impact.
Open access has been empirically shown to increase impact and advance
research in science, social science, and the humanities (
http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html).   By extension
publishers and disciplines (anthropology) benefit when their authors'
and members' publications are widely accessible in the research
community.  Anthropology as a discipline has much to offer the public
at large, and stands to take a back seat in the public sphere if the
results of its research are constrained by price barriers.
Further, journals that do not provide the impact and visibility
enjoyed by open access journals will not attract the best scholarship.

FRPAA's requirement for deposit in a repository is one of its more
salient features.   It has been demonstrated that mandates from
funding sources (as done by The Wellcome Trust) produce desired
results where requests (as done by the NIH) have failed to do so (
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/08-02-06.htm#lessons).

With more than a decade of experience, there is no evidence that
self-archiving reduces subscription revenue (
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11006/) even in disciplines where
self-archiving is widely practiced.   In the case of the AAA, the 2005
author's agreement provides all AAA authors the right to self-archive
their final peer-reviewed manuscripts in repositories simultaneously
with publication. As far as we know, this has not had any negative
financial impact.

Why the ASSC does not support the "official" AAA position

The AnthroSource Steering Committee takes issue with the opposition to
FRPAA expressed in the AAP letter that the AAA has officially signed.
Going beyond our conflicting positions, we are concerned that the
reasoning provided in the AAP letter ( http://www.pspcentral.org/) and
the FRPAA FAQ (link) prepared by AAA staff do not serve the AAA well.

The AAA has placed itself in clear opposition to the academic
community and libraries of all types who have publicly voiced
unequivocal support for FRPAA.   The open letter from provosts  (
http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/groups/CICMembers/archive/documents/FRPAAletterFinal7-24-06.pdf)
is particularly noteworthy as it signals the intent to re-direct their
budgets for scholarly communication toward institutions that support
the principles of FRPAA.  We are disappointed to see that the AAA has
distanced itself from the position taken by key academic
administrators who will make important decisions about how funding is
allocated to meet the needs of the scholarly community.

We take exception to the AAP letter, which states that FRPAA "would
effectively expropriate the substantial investments in peer review
made by professional and scholarly journal publishers" on the grounds
that it ignores the fact that publishers themselves profit from the
availability of royalty-free, publicly financed research that is
enhanced by reviewers who are compensated not by publishers but by the
institutions in which they work.

We also want to point out that to satisfy FRPAA requirements, an
author may submit the final peer-reviewed manuscript and is not
required to submit the publishers' formatted work.  FPRAA places the
burden of deposit on the researcher, not on the publisher.

The FAQ reinforces the appearance that AAA has placed commercial
interests at the forefront of its publications program by claiming
that "subscription revenue could be adversely affected by the
legislation."   As mentioned above, studies in many fields over more
than a decade show that self-archiving has not reduced subscriptions.

The FRPAA FAQ prepared by AAA staff indicates that "AAA policy
support[s] open access objectives."  We acknowledge that the author
agreement and the Executive Board motion to allow complete access to
institutions in less developed countries, tribal colleges and selected
universities in North America are important moves in support of open
access.  However, AAA's opposition to FRPAA and the ten-year embargo
on Anthropology News for library subscribers are examples of AAA
actions that go against the objectives of open access.    From our
perspective AAA does not have a policy on open access and its track
record is mixed, thus putting into question the credibility of the
association on matters related to open access.

Recommendations:

In accordance with the ASSC's responsibility to advise the CSC and
Executive Board we recommend the following actions be taken in support
of the AnthroSource vision.

That AAA join ranks with university administrators, librarians and
various public interest groups in supporting FRPAA.  Doing so is an
important first step toward developing partnerships needed to move
AnthroSource forward.   An effective means to do so would be the
development of an AAA resolution in support of FRPAA for consideration
at the November meeting.

That AAA position itself to become, through AnthroSource, the
repository of choice for anthropologists.  AAA is uniquely qualified
to take on the task of developing a disciplinary repository for
anthropology.  We note the 2005 authors' rights agreement and AAA's
partnership with Portico to provide digital preservation services as
important steps in this direction.  Endorsing FRPAA is another
important step as it provides crucial support to all institutions
developing repositories of scholarly publications.

That AAA develop a member-informed policy on open access.  The issues
raised by FRPAA are consequential to the members of AAA and deserve
broad discussion throughout the association toward the development of
principles and a policy which foregrounds the needs of scholars.   As
a first step we urge that the ASSC position on FRPAA be made available
to all members via aaanet and to section leaders and others via the
AAA leadership list.

 vvv

AAA and the Federal Research Public Access Act (FAQs)

AAA signals opposition to legislation (statement)