Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240
- 259)
WEDNESDAY, 21 APRIL 2004
MRS LYNNE
BRINDLEY, MR
PETER FOX,
MR FREDERICK
J FRIEND AND
MS DI
MARTIN
Q240 Dr Turner: You also have this
awful acronym, NESLi2. We have been told that this was based on
a need to secure profits for the publishers involved. What methods
did you use to calculate a fair proportion of margin for the publishers
when you designed the scheme?
Mr Friend: I do not know where
that quotation comes from. From JISC's point of view, which manages
the NESLI initiative, our motive is to increase access and to
get better value for money. We have certainly no wish to increase
publishers' profits.
Q241 Dr Turner: How does the NESLi2
work in practice in terms of administration and value for money?
Does it give libraries any worthwhile savings as a result of using
this scheme?
Mr Friend: It does, and it has
increased access to a limited extent, but it is quite labour-intensive
in terms of negotiation, both national negotiations and at local
level as well.
Q242 Kate Hoey: The one thing that
seems to unite yourselves, the publishers and the academics, is
the complaint about VAT. You have probably seen the Treasury note
that was put round. Would you tell us a little bit about whether
you feel the differential is significant, and what you have done
to try and make that better, other than getting the Treasury to
change their mindor the European Union?
Mr Fox: If I can quote a specific
example, I have had figures recently from a research university
in the north of England, which quoted figures for ScienceDirect
in 2003. They paid £450,000 for ScienceDirect for last year,
which was based on a mixed print and electronic environment. They
want to move to an entirely electronic environment from next year,
and the price will go up by £100,000. Much of that is VAT,
because you are paying VAT on the full subscription rather than
on the top-up, as it were, from the print.
Ms Martin: I can give you similar
figures from the University of Hertfordshire, but an order of
magnitude lower. The VAT we paid last year on journal subscriptionsand
I am afraid this is across all subject areaswas £100,000.
That is 5% of my total information provision budget.
Mr Friend: The solution we would
encourage you to raise with HM Customs & Excise is to allow
libraries exemption. They are not necessarily asking for zero
rating. Already there is a precedent for medical equipment which
universities can identify themselves and then be given exemption
from VAT. There is no reason in principle, and it would not contravene
European regulations, if that exemption were extended to electronic
information.
Q243 Kate Hoey: Do you accept anything
the Treasury says in terms of saying there are quite substantial
differences between the print and the digital?
Mrs Brindley: Clearly there are
differences, but those arguments imply that scientific information
is, if you like, analogous to a consumer good, whereas arguably
it is an intermediary good in support of R&D, and it seems
to fly in the face of the advice and the approach that the Treasury
is taking to R&D and tax credits and so on. There is a philosophical
inconsistency there.
Q244 Kate Hoey: Given that there
is the unity between you all on this issue, have you done anything
about lobbying the Treasury?
Mrs Brindley: As an aside, the
British Library's position is somewhat different, although we
are clearly very supportive of our higher education colleagues,
because we can recoup 85% of that because of our trading position.
However, our concern is that it is inhibiting a faster move towards
digital publication and indeed underpinning digital science and
digital economy, and so there is a real inhibitor there. I would
suggest the exemption is a good one to pursue.
Q245 Kate Hoey: You are saying that
if the Government were serious about long-term investment in research,
it would do
Mrs Brindley: Clearly, the Government
is very serious and has been very supportive of world-class science
in Britain generally, and it is absolutely essential that that
is supported; so this advice would perhaps appear to be superficially
inconsistent, but if that route is not one that can be pursued,
then the exemption route is a good one.
Mr Friend: The library organisations
and the publisher organisations jointly have talked to Customs
& Excise and have done lobbying within the European Parliament
about this, but so far we have hit a brick wall.
Kate Hoey: Perhaps you would like me
to bring it up when we have the debate on the constitution!
Chairman: You know how they will vote.
Q246 Bob Spink: JISC are promoting
open access and you have got the £150,000 seed money. Can
you tell us what your objectives are, please?
Mr Friend: One of JISC's strategic
aims is to improve the effectiveness of scholarly communications,
and one key factor in doing that is increasing access. We are
not talking only about access for the HE community, but JISC also
has a responsibility to the FE community. Indeed, there is huge,
untapped need for access to journal literature within the post-16
learning community. Open access will release a lot of information
to learners of all ages that is at present being restricted by
the subscription model.
Q247 Bob Spink: Do you think that
a switch to the author-pays model is the right way forward?
Mr Friend: We prefer to talk about
a publication payment rather than author-pays because we see the
way forward as being through funding agencies agreeing, or indeed
requiring that the publication payments can be made out of research
grants.
Q248 Bob Spink: How many publishers
have taken advantage of the £150,000 seed money so far?
Mr Friend: We had seven applications
in our first round, and we awarded four grants. That was at very
short notice, and we are expecting more applications in the second
round.
Q249 Bob Spink: Do you think that
£150,000 is enough or are you looking to increase that amount?
Mr Friend: No, I do not think
it is enough. That is all that JISC feels that it can afford in
the current situation. One aspect I would urge this Committee
to consider is whether the Government could give further support
in the transition situation. We are confident that the open access
model is viable in the long-term, but we do accept that there
is a risk to publishers in the short term, and that is the purpose
of this transition funding.
Q250 Bob Spink: You did a membership
deal with BioMed Central. Can you tell us something about that?
Mr Friend: That is producing very
good results in terms of academic involvement in open access,
and it is encouraging us to devote more money to this kind of
enterprise.
Q251 Bob Spink: What did it cost
you?
Mr Friend: I would need to confirm
that in writing.
Q252 Bob Spink: Do you think it is
sustainable? Is it a good way forward, this type of deal?
Mr Friend: Yes, I am certain open
access is viable in the long term. Whether the particular BioMed
Central membership model is the right way forward I am unclear,
but JISC is putting money into various ways of achieving open
access and it is also putting money into institutional repositories,
so we will find out in due course which is going to be the best
route in the long term.
Q253 Bob Spink: Do you happen to
know how many institutions have taken advantage of this BioMed
deal?
Mr Friend: I think the submissions
have been running at around 37 articles per month, of which around
20 have passed the peer review process.
Q254 Bob Spink: Do you think that
this open access is going to make bundling a non-issue very quickly;
or do you think that bundling will remain a major issue for some
years to come?
Mr Friend: I think a lot depends
on the reaction of the academic community and the publishers to
the experiments we are undertaking, but personally I do believe
that is the future.
Q255 Mr Key: Can I turn to legal
deposit and digitalisation issues. In the Legal Deposit Libraries
Act 2003, the Secretary of State could make regulations extending
the system of legal deposit to non-print material. The Government
has told us that DCMS is consulting on setting up an advisory
panel, which it hopes to have in place by the end of this year,
with work on regulations then beginning, and legal deposit likely
to start in 2005. Is that on track, and is it fast enough? What
is slipping through your fingers while this is happening?
Mrs Brindley: It is the case that
we anticipate that the regulatory procedures will continue and
implementation will start in 2005, but I would like to take us
back to the fact that we have had a voluntary deposit arrangement
and since that was implemented in 2000 the British Library has
received over 90,000 items. That is not to say that that is everything
but it is a substantial part, and since the legislation has been
passed, we have had more not less interest in voluntary deposit.
Each format, though, will have to go to regulation, and the first
regulation will be for off-line publications; but we are talking
with the publishers through the joint committee, looking at expanding
the voluntary scheme to include electronic journals, to try out
the practical issues in voluntary mode before we get to regulation.
It is quite important in that regulatory process that that is
where the debate around access is going to happen. The Legal Deposit
Libraries Act does not give specific access conditions or access
rights, so that will have to be negotiated as part of that consultation
process. Therefore, any support that you can give for reasonable
and appropriate access under each of those formats would be most
helpful.
Q256 Mr Key: Ninety thousand sounds
a lot, but what do you estimate are the gaps in your digital deposits?
Should it have been 180,000 or 100,000? How much are you missing?
Mrs Brindley: I can certainly
provide the Committee with some figures, but, for example, I think
there were about 60,000[2]
such publications this year. I can send you the details on the
different formats.
Q257 Mr Key: Are publishers playing
the game? Are they depositing their material voluntarily at the
moment?
Mrs Brindley: Since the Legal
Deposit Libraries Act was passed last year, we have seen an even
stronger interest from the publishers. By and large, we are working
very co-operatively with publishers. After all, it is in the interests
of all publishers, of all libraries, and indeed of science, that
there is a long-term arrangement and a long-term sustainable arrangement
for preservation of access to research material.
Q258 Mr Key: Mr Friend, are there
any publishers that are better than others, or some that are rather
more difficult to deal with in this respect?
Mr Friend: There are, yes, and
I have already given the example of the American Chemical Society.
Q259 Chairman: Go on, name some more!
You will regret it for the rest of your life if you do not!
Mr Friend: I would not like to
give any more specific examples. Part of the problem that we have
already highlighted is that we are dealing with different licences
for each publisher, and while there are certain things that do
appear in common, the long-term access question varies greatly
between publishers in terms of their policies.
2 In fact, this figure refers to the UK electronic
publishing output for 2002, the base year of the study undertaken
by Electronic Publishing Services Ltd for the Joint Committee
on Voluntary Deposit. Back
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