Declaring Independence at Penn
Scholarship held hostage to profits: the state of journal publishing and the local impact
For more than a decade, the scholarly journal - the established means of vetting and disseminating research - has been the preserve of an increasingly powerful group of international publishers. Using copyright and licensing strategies, these commercial giants sell back to universities at exorbitant cost the very content universities provide them for nothing. At Penn, journals presently account for nearly 70% of the Library’s materials budget; and, around the nation, university libraries have been constrained to cancel serials and reduce book acquisitions in order to control spiraling journal costs.
The problem of scholarly publishing has a direct impact on faculty and their students:
  • First, the monopolistic control of the information market by a handful of big publishers is consuming university finances at the expense of information support for new programs and new forms of information delivery.
  • Second, the practices of some publishers are curbing the rights of faculty over their own intellectual property.
  • Third, disproportionate spending on journals, primarily in science, technology and medicine, is curtailing information access for many disciplines outside the hard sciences.
  • And fourth, the existing system of scholarly publishing is restraining the flow of knowledge among communities of scholars and to the general public.
Through cooperative action, the academic community can begin to secure the independence of scholarly communication from commercial interests. To learn how, we invite you to explore the following pages and join the movement for independence.
Perspectives
Carton Rogers
Fernando Pereira, Professor, CIS