Examination of Witnesses (Questions 154
- 159)
MONDAY 8 MARCH 2004
DR NIGEL
GODDARD, MR
VITEK TRACZ
AND DR
HAROLD E VARMUS
Q154 Chairman: Welcome Nigel, Harold
and Vitek. If you could keep your answers short, it would help
us through the myriad of questions we have. What is wrong with
the existing publishing model?
Dr Varmus: It does not take advantage
of the opportunities offered by the internet on the one hand,
to make science work much better for scientists by allowing them
to make their findings accessible to the entire scientific community,
and on the other hand, to use that information much more effectively
by doing searches of digital information in large public libraries.
Q155 Chairman: Is there a demand
for change?
Dr Varmus: Absolutely.
Q156 Chairman: How big?
Dr Varmus: Big and getting bigger.
Q157 Chairman: It is growing every
day, is it?
Dr Varmus: From the scientific
community and the public.
Q158 Chairman: We heard last week
that open access would actually have the effect of limiting access
to those with e-access. How would you respond to this?
Dr Varmus: There is increasing
availability of hardware and access to the internet in all countries
of the world; all working scientists have access. This will only
grow and will grow faster as people realise they can get access
to the entire repertoire of new scientific findings by using the
internet.
Mr Tracz: It is worth adding that
the fact that we publish electronically does not mean that information
cannot be distributed in print, in fact very commonly, particularly
in the third world, it is enough to have one computer with internet
access and then locally it can be printed and distributed. This
often happens. In our case we know of many situations where people
distribute the papers in print and in open access it is permissible.
Dr Varmus: Things can be downloaded
and mailed to people who specifically need them but do not have
access, which is increasingly rare.
Q159 Chairman: Will the big commercial
publishers not just make the same profits but in a new way? They
are not going to be blown out of the water, are they?
Dr Varmus: Not necessarily, but
the situation will still be competitive. The scientists have a
few objectives, and publishing is a crucial element of the life
of a scientist. They want to publish in the best places and they
are willing to provide their material for free. All they want
is to be read. They want to publish in the place which has the
highest credibility among their colleagues. If a commercial publisher
moves to an open access mode, it can make a profit and attract
the best papers because the best papers are published there and
it has a high credibility. That is possible.
Mr Tracz: I am a commercial publisher
and we publish all primary literature. The reason we do it is
because we think it gives us a competitive advantage not a competitive
disadvantage.
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