The United Kingdom ParliamentThe United Kingdom ParliamentAbout ParliamentMembers and StaffBusinessPublications & Recordsline imagesA-Z IndexGlossaryContact UsHelp
 HansardArchivesResearchHOC PublicationsHOL PublicationsCommittees
Advanced
search
Select Committee on Science and Technology Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220 - 239)

WEDNESDAY, 21 APRIL 2004

MRS LYNNE BRINDLEY, MR PETER FOX, MR FREDERICK J FRIEND AND MS DI MARTIN

  Q220  Dr Iddon: Have you estimated the shortfall in percentage terms?

  Ms Martin: If I could quote some figures from a survey to illustrate this, there was a 58% increase in journal inflation over a five-year period and an 11% increase in RPI. In the same period, the information provision spend per FT student across the sector increased by 12%, so more or less in line with RPI rather than in line with journal inflation. That reflects the changing balance in that information spend towards journals rather than books.

  Q221  Dr Iddon: Can you tell us whether it is true that there are different practices between the major publishing houses on the way they operate bundling? Can you confirm that, and if it is right can you tell us something about best and worst practices by the different publishing houses?

  Ms Martin: One of the things that we read in the press is that there is a lot of flexibility in bundling about our choice of what is in the bundle. Our experience shows that not to be the case, and we find that publishers tend to approach us in terms of selling us a fixed product, and we have to negotiate very hard to get any flexibility within those products.

  Q222  Chairman: Is it "take it or leave it" or is it real negotiations?

  Ms Martin: The starting-point is "take it or leave it". We have to challenge very hard to get some flexibility. That is not to say that there have not been some successes, and I do not wish to say that all publishers are in the same frame here. If I could give you an example, with the ScienceDirect licence we currently have, which I have to say contrasts with Cambridge's experience and was beneficial to us in the first instance because it was predicated on our previous spend for print journals, this allows us some flexibility within the bundle to substitute new titles for previous ones, providing the value remains the same. The deal that has been put forward now for higher education, if we were to move to that, would give us much fewer options and we would have to take a set package.

  Q223  Dr Iddon: What effect does bundling have on the rest of the journal provision from other publishers which perhaps do not do the bundling exercise? Are you losing out or are your academics losing out on journals that they consider essential because you are having to venture into these cost-cutting deals?

  Mr Fox: Where the academics would say that a journal was essential, we would try if at all possible to retain that title. It is the next few levels down, in terms of need, where the problem arises. I think most universities have been through journals cutting exercises over the last few years, where academics have been asked to rate the various titles, and the ones coming out at the bottom of the list have had to be cancelled.

  Q224  Dr Iddon: Obviously, the universities are a major provider of profit for the large companies that do these bundling exercises, so why do you not have any clout to make them change their minds or become more flexible?

  Mr Friend: We do have some clout. We have been able to persuade even major publishers to change their policies in some areas, but ultimately we are in the hands of our academic community, and if the academic community does not back the library up in saying "no", then the library alone could not take action.

  Q225  Chairman: You are being extremely diplomatic, and we are very grateful for that, but it is not quite the spirit I like to engender in these hearings. I just wondered if you would like to say what the best companies are, the companies that are the most flexible and the easiest to negotiate with, and the worst companies? Why not say it? Please do.

  Mr Friend: In general, the ALPSP members are easier for us to deal with. They generally have very strong academic contacts and they are working in our kind of environment. I can give you two examples of publishers that have been very difficult to deal with. One would be Elsevier, where last year we spent about six months doing national negotiations, and we are still spending another four months in sorting out the details at local level. You agree a national price of, say, 5% on what you paid last year; but then, when the detail gets down to local level, you find that the reality is very different. That negotiation has been extremely time-consuming, and is still not resolved for many universities. Another example I can give you is the American Chemical Society, where we have had great difficulty on long-term access. You will understand that in the electronic environment we are not allowed to purchase the content outright; it is licensed to us. Many publishers impose conditions upon long-term access—not all, and in general the ALPSP publishers are better on this, but the American Chemical Society is very difficult.

  Q226  Dr Iddon: I am sorry to hear that. In July I will be meeting the President of the American Chemical Society! I will pass on that comment. As a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, I am very much in favour, apart from what you have just said, of learned societies continuing to publish. Are you finding that learned society publishing is being squeezed out or forced into bundling by the commercial houses?

  Mr Friend: The short answer is "yes".

  Q227  Chairman: Is that a new phenomenon or has it been gradual?

  Mr Fox: Big-deal bundling itself is a relatively new phenomenon, say the last two to four years.

  Q228  Dr Harris: As I understand it, bundling was initiated as a request by purchasers at the libraries to get cheaper deals for big packages. Now, the criticism of bundling is coming from those library communities. When we raised this question, the publisher said, "if they do not want it any more, they do not have to have it; it is on its way out". It is very flexible, and indeed Elsevier said: "The libraries are free to choose whatever they wish." You have directly contradicted that already. They also said that it is a passé issue because they are on the way out because there has been this adverse publicity around it. Would you care to comment on that?

  Mr Friend: Personally, I do think that bundling is on the way out, and I see it being replaced by open access. Again, as with the print electronic situation, I think it will be a gradual change.

  Mr Fox: There is also a difference in the approach to bundling when it was first introduced, or there was, between the research-intensive universities and the universities which were more teaching intensive. As Di has said, the University of Hertfordshire welcomed the ScienceDirect deal. Many of the Russell Group of universities did not because we felt we were simply paying more for content that we did not want in the first place. We subscribed to most of the titles we wanted, and the bundle simply gave us very little more other than electronic access on a better basis.

  Q229  Dr Harris: There is a market here, is there not, in theory? You should, as the buyers, be able to exercise your muscle in that market. You just said that in order to do that, you need the academics behind you. Can you be a bit more specific about how you feel that your market power, which is what society and government expect you to rely on to avoid being hit in this way, is limited by the academics that back you?

  Mr Fox: The problem is that we are in a monopolistic situation. If an academic needs an article from a particular journal, an article from a different journal will not do; and therefore we have to subscribe to that journal. At the moment, many publishers insist on the academic handing over the copyright to the publisher, and the exclusive rights. They are not free to publish the results of that research anywhere else.

  Q230  Dr Harris: I still do not know what these academics could do to back you up. Would that argument not apply, regardless of whether it is bundled? Is that not just a way that the prices stay high? I want to know generally what you do and why there is something specific about bundling that you find yourself powerless because of your unco-operative academics.

  Mr Friend: There are two basic problems. One is the lack of competition, and the other is that the people that are paying for the journals, i.e., the libraries, are not the people that are taking the decision whether or not they are purchasers. There is this gulf between the academic side of the process and the library side, in terms of payment or lack of payment. One advantage of open access is that this restores the decision on payment to the authors.

  Q231  Dr Harris: The final point is this issue of the digital archive. We have heard that some people have complained that you have lost control over access to the digital archive and publications that you previously subscribed to in digital format when you cancelled the subscription. Has that been a problem, and how does that affect what you do in terms of how you choose in advance, knowing what the rules are?

  Mr Fox: This is one of the disincentives to moving towards the electronic-only approach. If you subscribe to a paper journal, then obviously you have got that journal sitting on your shelves for perpetuity. If you subscribe to an electronic version of that journal only and cease to subscribe, almost always you lose access to everything that you have paid for in the past.[1]

  Mrs Brindley: The situation is very messy. Different publishers have different policies. Some provide CD copies of back copies that have been subscribed to. One issue that has been raised with publishers is whether, for example, the British Library might be a clearing-house for these back, previously subscribed-to journals. Again, that raises the issue about the need for a national long-term infrastructure to ensure that those journals are always available.

  Q232  Dr Turner: Can I ask you about licensing arrangements? Are you finding that you are able to collaborate, as libraries, and secure better licensing deals with publishers than on your own? Do you find the interests of libraries are sufficiently similar?

  Ms Martin: There is a good track record of negotiation nationally with the publishers. From our perspective, certainly where a publisher has adopted the model licence terms that have been agreed nationally, it has made it much easier to manage and deliver those journals to our staff and students within the universities. That is by no means used by all publishers, and there is a very mixed pattern in terms of licence terms and conditions, which, I would have to say, we find overly complex and overly restrictive. I have examples where a licence would be a markedly different price, for example, if we used the web-based version as opposed to accepting a CD-ROM that we would then run internally in the university—the same material.

  Q233  Dr Turner: Can I ask the university librarians: how effectively you think digital licensing deals with publishers meet the needs of your user communities? How do they react? What feedback do you get?

  Mr Fox: Digital licences for journals?

  Q234  Dr Turner: Yes.

  Mr Fox: On the whole, they react very favourably because most scientists like to get access to the material on their desktop. The problem is that, as Fred has said, they do not normally deal with their pricing and negotiating. What they see—and quite rightly what they want to see—is the end result. It is our job to do the negotiating, and that is where the problems arise in terms of lack of transparency of some publishers in precisely what the arrangements are and the difficulties in getting agreement on anything like a model licence.

  Ms Martin: There are issues related to access that are varied across the licences. Some licences allow use by walk-in users and others do not, and for a library to manage or make available those licences that do allow walk-in users, as opposed to those who do not, on an individual basis—the people coming through the door—is too complex to be manageable.

  Q235  Chairman: A walk-in user is somebody who comes into the library.

  Ms Martin: Yes, somebody who might come in, either as a member of the public, or particularly perhaps somebody from an SME who might be working with a university. I think there is a real tension in the current licensing arrangements which prevents the university perhaps meeting some of its obligations in terms of working with business and industry in terms of knowledge transfer and business partnerships.

  Q236  Chairman: Higher education obviously will extend that kind of contact and use.

  Mr Fox: That applies particularly in a library like mine, where more than 50% of our currently registered users are not current staff and students of the university. In a paper environment they expect to come in and use whatever is on the shelves, and can do so. In an electronic environment that is by no means the case. Depending on whatever the licensing restrictions are, we might or might not be able to give them access to certain resources. That inevitably leads to a good deal of frustration among those readers, who cannot understand why they cannot have access.

  Q237  Dr Turner: How do publishers police that?

  Mr Fox: We sign licensing agreements with them and they are legal contracts.

  Q238  Dr Turner: If you make someone an honorary member of your university staff, would that give them access?

  Mr Fox: I think we would not do it.

  Q239  Dr Turner: How far is it possible to use digital journals or the materials in them for teaching purposes? Could you use digital materials exclusively for teaching or not?

  Ms Martin: We have looked into this area in some depth because we are running a university-wide virtual learning environment, and quite a number of the licences we have specifically prohibit uploading of the information we have already paid for in terms of digital journals, for use within the virtual learning environment. That is not true of all of them—there is a very mixed picture. For those that subscribe to the model licence, it does include that; but others do not. That is a very frustrating process for academic staff, because they want to make use of the resources the university has paid for, in order to enhance the student learning experience.

  Mr Fox: This is a further argument for breaking the monopoly, either through greater use of open access to journals or through archiving in institutional repositories, so that at least the material created within the university is then freely available both within the university and to the wider world.


1   Note by the witness: When a subscription to an electronic journal ceases, some publishers provide no access to material already paid for; others do provide access to subscribed material, but an additional fee may be charged. Back


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2004
Prepared 20 July 2004