Untitled 3/24/01 11:29 AM

Public Library of Science

Science magazine recently published a letter (see Scignce Mar 23 2001: 2318) from many of us supporting free distribution and use of the
record of scientific research and ideas and the creation of open archives of scientific literature. In their response to our letter (see Science Mar
23 2001: 2319) the editors of Science rejected our call.

We are disappointed in this decision, and even more so in the reasons presented by Science tor rejecting our proposal. Their response contains
numerous faulty arguments and misrepresentations of our intentions, to which we feel compelled to respond.

First, and foremost, by choosing to title their piece "Is a Government Archive the Best Option", the editors have deliberately mischaracterized
our position as proposing that all scientific literature be stored exclusively in a single NIH controlled "Government Archive", so that they could
raise the specter of "state-run, centrally managed economy in biomedicine" and wring their hands over the perils of monopolies.

This argument is both disingenuous and ironic. In the current system, each publisher is a monopoly supplier of every research article it has
published. This is a monopoly in every meaningful sense - no other publisher or group can compete with Science to provide the published
reports that happened to have been published in Science's pages, by offering lower prices or better utility. One journals archives cannot replace
another's, so the multiplicity of journals does not undermine this monopoly control over access. Science argues that HighWire press should be
the sole provider of online access to contents of Science and the growing stable of HighWire journals. We wonder why the editors believe that
this private monopoly is preferable to a government monopoly? We condemn ANY monopoly over access to any part of the scientific record.
Our proposal for free distribution and use of the scientific literature is aimed precisely at avoiding such monopolistic control of the record of
scientific progress. Neither Science, nor HighWire Press, nor PMC should be the sole provider. The best way to avoid monopolistic control of
the literature is to abandon the idea that the scientific literature should be owned and controlled by any single entity, be they private or public. A
system in which no single entity, whether a publisher, a publishing cartel, a scientific society or a government, has sole contro} over a part of the
scientific record, will provide the surest guarantee against censorship or abuse of power. That is exactly what we advocate.

A second centerpiece to the editors’ argument is that it may cost Science some of its income. Science should consider the experience of PNAS
and Molecular Biology of the Cell - journals that are less reliant on evanescent news and gossip for their sales, and which would therefore be
expected to face greater risk from early free access. Both journals have been providing their contents for free within 2 months of publication,
and after a year, neither has lost subscribers. The Science editors argue that online traffic to the Science website from readers searching for
archival articles is an economically important source of income. We find this difficult to believe. But even if it is, we doubt that this traffic is
important enough to Science's balance sheet to warrant their opposition to our proposal, the goals of which the editors "applaud".

Central as it is to Sciences rejection of our proposal, this financial risk argument must be examined more critically. While we respect the
integrity of the Science editors who are making this argument, as scientists, we cannot be expected to accept it as valid without rigorous peer
review - let us examine the data for ourselves. Most members of scientific societies and subscribers to their journals have no detailed
knowledge of the finances and financial practices of the journals and societies. Indeed, there are few checks and balances to ensure that these
groups are acting responsibly on behalf of their members. Since Science has now raised this as an issue, we ask Science to make public its full
financial records, including all its sources of income, its operating expenditures, and those of the AAAS activities that benetit from its profits.
Indeed, we urge our scientific colleagues to demand that their societies and journals disclose their full financial records so that we can give fair
consideration to the financial arguments that Science and other journals offer might against our proposal. We value to important role that
scientific societies play, and we do not wish to see them go bankrupt. We believe, however, that open and informed dialog regarding financial
issues will lead to methods for the financial support of scientific societies that allow them to better serve the scientific community and public by
making the research published in their journals freely available.

Science further argues that posting their content on a site (PMC) that primarily serves biomedical scientists is a transfer payment from other
disciplines to biomedical science. An obvious solution, and one we would applaud, would be for Science to play a leading role in expanding the
Public Library of Science proposal to the sciences in general. And the argument is disingenuous - we suspect that most of the users of
Science's own web site are biomedical scientists already, and that most of Science's income comes from advertisements directed at biomedical
scientists and subscriptions from biomedical scientists.

The argument about "misuse of content" is simply absurd. What sort of misuse can we imagine? Plagiarism? The only protection we have
against plagiarism now is the integrity of the scientific community. The current system of restricted access to the primary research literature
does nothing to protect authors or readers from misuse of content. Instead, the existence of full-text archives of the scientific literature would
make plagiarism and other misuses of published material far easier to detect and thus less likely to occur.

We appreciate the sentiment in the first paragraph the Science editors’ response to our proposal: "We admire the goal, and suspect that
evolutionary forces may be moving us toward it". But we are disappointed in its passivity. If the editors of Science believe in the goal, then
Science should be in the forefront, leading the way, rather than responding to, or worse, resisting the external forces that are leading them
toward it.

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