Current Communications and public consultations from the European Commission

The European Commission currently has three 'communications' (EC speak for policy documents) and public consultations open that may be of interest to ALPSP members.

1. Consultation on “Europeana – next steps”
The European Commission adopted the Communication “Europeana – next steps” on 28 August 2009. Europeana is "Europe's online library, museum and archive" and is part of the European Commission's digital libraries initiative which, in their words, aims "to make Europe's cultural and scientific heritage accessible to all on the internet".

The EC has launched a public consultation to discuss the further development of Europeana (deadline for comments: 15 November 2009).

2. Consultation on “Post i2010: priorities for a new strategy for European information society (2010-2015)”
The European Commission has published Europe’s Digital Competitiveness Report and opened a public consultation on what future strategy should be adopted to meet 5 stated goals:

• to accelerate the economic recovery and maintain its world leadership in high-tech sectors
• to spend research budgets more effectively so that bright ideas are marketed and generate new growth
• to kick-start ICT-led productivity to offset GDP stagnation as the labour force starts to shrink when the baby boomers retire
• to foster new, smarter, cleaner technologies that can help Europe achieve a factor for growth; and
• to use networking tools to rebuild trust in Europe as an open and democratic society.

The Commission has launched an online questionnaire to gather opinion.

3. Communication on “Enhancing the enforcement of intellectual property rights in the internal market”
On 14 September 2009 the European Commission adopted the Communication "Enhancing the enforcement of intellectual property rights in the internal market". There is no consultation open on this Communication but ALPSP members may be interested in the "practical, non-legislative measures to combat counterfeiting and piracy" that are outlined in the Commission's press release.

Toby Green elected next Chair of ALPSP

Toby Green, Head of Publishing at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), has been elected as the next Chair of ALPSP.

Toby joined OECD in 1998 and became Head of Publishing in 2007. He was instrumental in the launch of SourceOECD in 2000 and since then OECD has continued to carve out a reputation as one of the most innovative and forwarding-thinking publishers in the non-profit sector. He began his publishing career in 1982 and has previously worked for Academic Press, Elsevier and Pergamon Press.

Speaking of his election, Toby said "It is a great honour to be asked to Chair ALPSP. The challenge is to build on the momentum that ALPSP has so that it can deepen and extend its work in serving the international community of not-for-profit scholarly publishers. ALPSP has its roots in the UK but has 140 members outside of the UK and active chapters in North America and Australasia so it is definitely a global association. Appointing a Chair based outside the UK for the first time underlines this global aspiration."

Toby served as a Member of the Council of ALPSP from 2002-2006 and will re-join Council as Chair on 1 January 2010, succeeding Robert Parker (Royal Society of Chemistry) who will continue to serve on Council as Past-Chair.

Fun and fundraising at the ALPSP / Ringgold Golf

Congratulations to the winners of the 2009 ALPSP / Ringgold Texas Scramble golf competition.

Shown receiving their trophies from Ringgold's Helen Henderson (far left) are from left to right Jevin West, Mary Waltham and Jacquie Thomson.

I am delighted to say that the event raised £200 for the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

My thanks to all those that took part - a good time was definitely had by all!

New report on small businesses' access to research literature

The Publishing Research Consortium (PRC) - of which ALPSP is a founding partner - has just published a new report by Mark Ware examining UK small businesses' access to research information.

As noted by Bob Campbell, Chair of the Publishing Research Consortium steering group:

"The so-called ‘access gap’ for small businesses has often been cited as a problem in the current scholarly communication system, without much idea of its extent. This study is an important first step in improving our understanding of how staff in small businesses use journals and what can be done to achieve even greater access."

It's a hot topic because small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up a huge proportion of businesses (over 99% in the UK), account for a significant proportion of private sector employment and turnover and, crucially, drive much of the innovation in the economy. Access to the research literature by SMEs hasn't been studied much and so this report is a very welcome addition to the evidence base.

The report includes primary data from an online survey and qualitative interviews and finds that SME access to research information is good, but could be improved still further. Key findings are:

• 70% of respondents for whom access to the literature was important described their access as fairly of very easy
• SME respondents read circa 112 articles per year on average which implies that there are no major access barriers
• Ease of access was lower among SMEs than in larger companies or universities
• SMEs are more likely to experience access difficulties than those in larger companies or universities

The research report Access by UK small and medium-sized enterprises to professional and academic information is available from the PRC website along with a companion report containing additional information and analysis.

Mark Ware will give a brief presentation on the survey at an additional session of the ALPSP International Conference at 5:30pm on Thursday 10 September 2009.

UK government gets tough with internet pirates

The UK government has accepted the huge and growing problem of internet piracy with Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw promising tougher measures to crackdown on illegal file-sharing.

Measures that the UK government is supporting include:

• Warning letters to those illegally downloading content
• Allowing telecoms watchdog Ofcom to release the identities of serial infringers to facilitate prosecution by rightsholders
• Making internet service providers (ISPs) slow down the internet connections of repeat offenders, although the government appears to have backed away from getting ISPs to terminate internet access altogether

Representatives of the content industries - including ALPSP - have been working together to ensure that the government understands the economic and social importance of the creative industries and the negative impact that illegal file-sharing is having and it is great to see that our message seems to have gotten through despite fierce lobbying from the ISPs who oppose these measures.

Social Media Workshops - discount for ALPSP members

Reed Media are offering a 10% discount to ALPSP members for their workshop Introduction to Social Media Marketing for Publishers which will take place in London on October 27, 2009.

More information is available on the event's webpage.

To claim your discount enter the code alpsp1009 when prompted.

FOCUS ON: The DC Principles Coalition

The DC Principles Coalition has been an important voice in the on-going debate about changes to scholarly publishing, and an extremely active and influential one.

Marty Frank (American Physiological Society) explains more about the DC Principles Group and why it started:

"The seeds for the DC Principles Coalition for Free Access to Science were planted at the 2003 meeting of publishers working with HighWire. The group had been monitoring the efforts of advocates for changes in scholarly communication, finding themselves frustrated by calls for open access and complaints about the high cost of scholarly publications, especially those published by commercial companies. As not-for-profit publishers, the group considers themselves responsible partners with the academy, producing reasonably priced scholarly journals. As a result, a group of not-for-profit scholarly publishers, led by representatives from the American Physiological Society, the Endocrine Society, the American Association of Pediatrics and the American Association for Cancer Research, created the DC Principles Coalition in 2004 providing a voice for not-for-profit publishers (www.dcprinciples.org).

Coalition members believe it appropriate to make the full-text of their journals freely available to everyone worldwide either immediately or within months of publication, depending on each publisher’s business & publishing requirements. Unfortunately, funding agencies do not agree with that philosophy, mandating free access without demonstrating any concern about the viability of the journals that the scientific community relies upon. As a group, representatives of the DC Principles Coalition have written to our elected representatives, met with administration leadership, and testified before Congress on legislation and policies that impact upon our ability to publish scholarly works. The Coalition is comprised of 73 publishers with nearly 400 journals ranging from top-tier medical and research to small niche publications. The societies that make up the Coalition represent over 700,000 individual members. They publish over 100,000 articles annually with approximately 20% of them based on research funded by the National Institutes of Health. The Coalition represents a diverse group of not-for-profit publishers believing in free access with some making their content available after 2 years, while others immediately or after 2 months because one policy does not fit the needs of all publishers."

ALPSP is supportive of the DC Principles Coalition; if your organization believes in the free access as defined by your organization’s business and publishing requirements, consider joining the DC Principles Coalition by completing the form available at http://www.dcprinciples.org/join.htm.