Scientific Journals

[jerryyu]

how is any scientific ideas and innovations gonna spread if seriously every single scientific journal costs like 31 dollars just to read them? (or just some money, not necessary that much).

[timo]

1) Sometimes, there's free versions available in addition to the publisher-set one. If you found a paper using Google Scholar (that is how I search for papers, at least), click on "all x versions" on the bottom of the hit and check if there's a freely-available version.

 

2) More importantly: Research institutions do have a flat rate for many journals. Hence, the majority of researchers isn't really affected (except that it can make working at home an annoyance).

 

 

Also keep in mind: Articles in scientific journals are (imho) not the main route of spreading new ideas. I get new ideas from attending talks, presentations, conferences, or just talking to the people; not from searching papers on the internet. Of course I do have a look at the paper if I find it interesting, so admittedly the fee would still be a hindrance, wasn't it for 1) and 2).

[imatfaal]

As Timo say most institutions (esp educational/academic) get very low rates, sometimes zero for huge swathes of academic literature. You can read them in hard copy at the library or more likely download pdf versions at home/desk.

For individuals the list price for subscription can be very different to the cover price, or charge for a single article - my copy of nature has a cover price of £10, yet I only pay about £2.20 for mine because I am a subscriber (that also gives me archive access). Its not free - but it's pretty cheap for one of the world's most important publications.

[CaptainPanic]

timo, imatfaal, what do you mean by "research institutions"? Care to expand a bit?

 

As far as I know, only universities and other educational institutions (bachelor schools) get a lower rate in the Netherlands... What's it like where you live (and can you tell me where that is)? Do you have a source for your statement?

 

I recently discussed this with some friends (main topic was availability of information) but could find absolutely nothing relevant online regarding what enterprises or institutions pay for papers.

[D H]

As Timo say most institutions (esp educational/academic) get very low rates, sometimes zero for huge swathes of academic literature.

Those institutions charge their users/subscribers very low rates. The institutions do not get very low rates. They get very high rates. Paying for the paper journals that form a big part of a college / technical institution's library and paying for site-wide electronic access to journal articles is a huge portion of those institution's library budgets.

Edited January 14, 2011 by D H

[timo]

By research institutes I mean universities, Max-Planck institutes (the by far largest non-university research community in Germany, which is where I live, btw.), and CERN (a rather large internationally run research center in central Europe). That's the only institutions that I can speak of from first hand. I didn't say anything about a discount. I would in fact expect that the full flat-rate fee is paid (something around a few thousand dollars a year, I think). But I never bothered to really ask someone about it since for me it only matters that I can access most journals without even seeing a barrier. I did in fact not mean companies like Intel. I don't think profit-oriented companies are very interested in spreading innovation, so I didn't really consider it part of the question.

[imatfaal]

Those institutions charge their users/subscribers very low rates. The institutions do not get very low rates. They get very high rates. Paying for the paper journals that form a big part of a college / technical institution's library and paying for site-wide electronic access to journal articles is a huge portion of those institution's library budgets.

 

In terms of an absolute cost the price of providing access to an institution's students to the academic literature is high and a large percentage of the budget - but when looked at compared to cover price or even subscription it is low.

 

The OP mentioned $30 an issue, my nature's copy's cover price is £10, thru sub it is £2.20; for an academic institution requiring 10,000 Full-time equivalent copies - you would pay about £90 per issue. I would call 9 times the cover price of a single issue to provide access for 10,000 students very low and say it is pretty good value. In the law (and I would hope in other areas) many professional databases and literature depositories provide free access to academic institutions; lexis-nexis and westlaw are both provided through Athens to students at almost no cost - whereas the professional/company pays tens of thousands of pounds per user.

[ajb]

For mathematics and physics, the arXiv is a great source of preprints. Many of the articles have been published in journals, but by no means all.

[SMF]

After I lost my access to a university library I find this problem to be very frustrating. It seems that because we all pay, with our taxes, for most of the basic science being done, we should have free access to the published research results. I realize that this is a sticky problem because scientific journals have to be able to cover their costs, but there should be some way to deal with this. I would be willing to pay more in my taxes to get free access, but this is unlikely to come to pass. I always thought that some of the big freeloaders using this system, the various high tech industries that use tax supported research findings at no cost to make new products for profit, might cover the expense. And, so it goes. SM

[CharonY]

NIH-funded projects are generally freely available via Pubmed central (as are others), and of course there are open access journals. Regarding access via research institutions and unis, it is often a mxied bag. The MPI has great access to about anything (though some more exotic ones are not available), however universities with more limited budgets often struggle. If the uni has no subscription it can cost around 3 euros or so (IIRC) to get a scanned version sent to you. Which is still cheaper than what you would have to pay as an individual.

[ajb]

Also, for papers you are finding hard to get hold of you can always ask the author for a copy. Often journals will give the author several hard copies of the paper. The author will generally be very pleased that someone is interested in their work.

 

I have been successful in asking for a papers before. Though, these papers were about 20 years old and not available online.

[ewmon]

After I lost my access to a university library I find this problem to be very frustrating. It seems that because we all pay, with our taxes, for most of the basic science being done, we should have free access to the published research results.

Where I am in the US, residents have access to libraries at government-run colleges and universities exactly due to that reason (that is, paid by our taxes).

[SMF]

Ewmon, I live in the US but the only way I can access all the recent journal articles I wish to see is by going to the library. The closest one to me is three hours away. I am emeritus faculty, but my university doesn't even provide access unless I maintain an office on campus. If you have a way to gain access online, please let me know. SM