This morning I sat down with my 14 year old son and asked him what area of science caught his interest especially.  He answered “the future of space exploration”. We carried out a search on the Web of Science for “future + space + exploration”, and the fifth article returned was “Comparing future options for human space flight” by Sherwood Brent (Acta Astronautica 69 346-353, 2011).  We downloaded the article and he read it.  When asked, he said the paper was understandable and interesting – he was glad that he’d read it, and wanted to know where he could read more stuff like this.

There’s a myth that only people who have ready access to peer review papers have any real need or desire to read them, and it’s a pernicious myth.

George Monbiot stirred up the debate on access to scientific publications recently in his Guardian piece “Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist“.  In response, Kent Anderson – a long-time publisher and editor of scientific journals – set up this straw scenario, using it to justify limited access to journal publications:

Let’s assume everyone with a beating heart is interested in cardiology topics. Let’s search PubMed for a paper on “cardiac.” Let’s take the first one we find. Let’s read the conclusion from the abstract:

Intrathoracic herniation of the liver (“liver-up”) is associated with predominant left heart hypoplasia in left diaphragmatic hernia but not right fetal diaphragmatic hernia. Our observations indicate that this difference may result from different ductus venosus streaming sites in these conditions.

So my layperson understanding of intrathoracic heart hypoplasia is vital to my ability to function in a democracy and make informed political decisions? I think I sense a herniation just from the stretch that takes to achieve plausibility.

Let’s assume I can read the whole paper. Like 99.9% of the population, I’m not going to know what to make of it. It’s for specialists, or better, subspecialists (cardiologists who specialize in neonates, I suppose). It was published early online, so it’s likely free. Most journals make their content published early online free for a limited time. We have the English abstract, but it’s a German journal. Who paid for that translation, assuming there was one?

Economics have nothing to do with accessibility of this information. Specialty knowledge is a prerequisite, and German language expertise would help.

There is no price in the world that’s going to make that scientific paper, or thousands of others, intelligible, relevant, or meaningful to me in any way that’s going to affect my ability to function in a democracy. And people who do need to see those papers can see those papers, probably know the authors, probably heard the poster session or talk at a meeting, and will know about the published report if it’s at all worth reading.

This is a shockingly disingenuous scenario – especially coming from a publisher – that seriously misrepresents that value of some publications to people who don’t have ready access to them, as well as how scientific publication tends to work these days.  It was what led to my impromptu conversation with my son, highlighting the existence of academic papers that are accessible to a broader audience.  But it also fundamentally misses the point that there are many, many people outside major academic institutions who would benefit from ready access to a broad range of peer review papers, but who are restricted by the high costs of institutional subscriptions and one-off par per view fees.

For a start, consider these groups:

Smaller academic institutions:  Library subscriptions are often limited in smaller institutions, meaning that if you want access to papers in less cited publications, or in areas outside your immediate discipline (yet still relevant to your work), you have a problem.  This is a major hurdle to interdisciplinary research.

Government research labs: The same applies here as for smaller academic institutions – subscription fees severely limit access to the broad scientific literature.

Independent research labs: Even worse.  You may have subscriptions to the big general journals (Nature and Science) and the top specialist journals in your area.  But access across disciplines, to cross-disciplinary publications and to lower impact journals, is limited.

The medical profession:  Unless you are affiliated with a large research institution, access to the peer review literature is likely to be limited to mainstream publications in your field.  Too bad if your interests are more wide ranging.

Industry:  The case is easy to make that industry should pay for access to publications.  But my experience talking with colleagues in industry has always been that there comes a point where the costs of subscriptions and one-off fees are prohibitive, even when the knowledge gleaned could be valuable.

The legal profession:  Even lawyers need access to academic papers sometimes – believe it or not!

Not-for-profit organizations: Think Tanks and NGO’s have major problems paying for access to the scientific literature, despite their work often being highly dependent on this literature.

The media [added 3:02 PM 9/5/11 – how could I have forgotten them first time!]: How are science reporters to report on the science, not just what the press releases say, without access to the original papers.  Sometimes possible, but by no means always without forking out $$

Schools: I’m not aware of many school districts that can afford broad access to the peer review literature, despite clear benefits to this for teachers and students.

The “public”:  OK so many papers are so esoteric that they will only be meaningful to a small minority of experts.  But there are also large numbers of publications that are understandable and relevant to people who’s only qualification is an interest in the world they live in.  And don’t forget that the “public” also includes people who are retired, between jobs or no longer in academic positions, but who nevertheless have the capacity to understand and benefit from highly specialized publications, and who don’t have the means to pay publication access fees.

Publishers aren’t the enemy here – wider access to the results of research is a systemic challenge that is going to require cooperation and innovation from everyone involved in the process.  But if progress is to be made, we cannot afford to kid ourselves that only the academic elite need access to academic papers, or that publications are beyond the ken of the public.

If I wasn’t at the University of Michigan, it would have cost my son $31.50 to read Brent’s paper in Acta Astronautica – he was gobsmacked when I told him!  I somehow can’t see his monthly allowance going on more articles like this – despite his clear interest in reading more.  And this is just one anecdotal example – how many more people do not have access to information that could enrich their lives, impact their community and improve society, simply because the cost of entry is too high?

I’d prefer to live in a world where my son is not prevented from reading papers that interest and enthuse him, or poor decisions are made because people can’t afford to read about research that mattered.  Public access journals, researcher-funded publications and access requirements for government-funded research are beginning to push us in the right direction.  But it seems we still have a way to go before we break down the misconception that access to peer review publications should be limited to a privileged few.

[Update 4:42 9/5/11 – I also meant to mention Martin Robbins’ piece on “Open science, Freedom of Information and the Big Journal monopoly” over at The Guardian blog – worth reading in the context of pey-per-view publication]