I was reading a thread in the Physics forum and BentheMan posted the following link to some physics papers slac.stanford.edu/spires/...hita+and+a+nio which got me thinking. How do people feel about paying to see scientific publications?

I noticed in Ben’s site, a good number of papers could be viewed for free, but I work the genetics field, and my main source for papers is PubMed where almost every paper you have to buy for the standard fee of $30. I think it’s a scam for websites to charge a fee for papers they publish.

I get the feeling the majority of users here run into this problem once in a while, and wanted to get some thoughts on the topic.

I'm with you! It pains me so much not having access to http://www.jstor.org/

jerks at www.science.com do that as well.

These sites you're complaining about are services, no? If you don't like them, why not browse the sources instead (i.e. the journals)?

Journals aren't free either, as Orleander has noted.

Open source science is the wave of the future. It's not quite ready for primetime yet though.

Free beer!

I have access to jstor and many others. :)

What about after you graduate?

Well, I am willing to pay for some works done, simply because i know that there is not a public market for them and the researcher needs funding or some form of income.
In end the work they do is actually important but society has no vision to see the importance of the work. what happens in the end is that others take their work or ideas, and make some other application for which they benfit, but the resercher that paved the road for society is unknown and with out benefit or even mention.
When you actually make a discovery you have to exspose it, and thats how people and society get better. the discoverer deserves some benefit, however it becomes all to common for people to forget that they got better because of someone else's dedication.

it takes some time ,maybe even years to actually do the work that results in a discovery that results in makeing life for people and society better, or providing a correct understanding for society and people. To spend that type of time requires a income, that you be rich, or that you have funding from some insitution or group, few people are so dedicated that they give up any stablity, or well being to achieve their science.

You have to remember that you are actually reciving something from some one when you get that paper, it may change your life, it took time to produce that idea.

Not every thing is what you need,some papers are of no value to you or may be a misconception in relation to other circumstances, scientist also have a obligation to society as they did not achieve their understanding to make a discovery under self education. those that do are few.

In the end advancement of society and life requires a certain openness and free flow of information.

DwayneD.L.Rabon

What about after you graduate?

How do you know I'm not a professor or lecturer?


Real answer: Won't be for a while at my pace. :p

funny
i wanted to do thread on this but then .....we pay one way or another to go to college
we have to pay
pay our intellectuals
just can a bomb or two
so ed can be free and universal

do it before i burn the temples down

How do you know I'm not a professor or lecturer?


a blatant and unapologetic display of ignorance?

And that is a trait unobserved in lecturers/professors?

Idiot.

yes
unobserved
exceptions do not make the rule
the trait is intellect rather than not

quack

Journals aren't free either, as Orleander has
Of course. But I understood the OP's complaint to be about paying for scientific papers per se, so what's the problem with PubMed and JSTOR?

well I get free access to those...hehehhee...

I get free access to the Cochrane Library paid for by the federal goverment:D

I get free access to the Cochrane Library paid for by the federal goverment:D

I get access to any scientific papers online for free, courtesy of my university :p:D

yea so can i but the whole COUNTRY has access to Cochrane if they want it. Infact from reading through what countries have and havent provided subscriptions for there citizans i think the only country that hasnt is the US

yea so can i but the whole COUNTRY has access to Cochrane if they want it. Infact from reading through what countries have and havent provided subscriptions for there citizans i think the only country that hasnt is the US

well I am in US.

And Cochrane is health care info, I need it not.

Did you even READ what i wrote. you already said you have access because your at uni, i am talking about the general public. If they want to look up a treatment for efficasy they can here, curtasy of the federal goverment. This is the same for most countries with the noticable exception of the US. I have to wonder WHY the US wouldnt want there citizans to see that kind of detailed resurch?

Did you even READ what i wrote. you already said you have access because your at uni, i am talking about the general public. If they want to look up a treatment for efficasy they can here, curtasy of the federal goverment. This is the same for most countries with the noticable exception of the US. I have to wonder WHY the US wouldnt want there citizans to see that kind of detailed resurch?

The whole EU has access to this information? It seems to me otherwise.

As for USA, it has better journals for their own citizens. Those who are interested are already having more information than they need, and the general public in USA could care less...their main food will remain McDonalds.

your joking right? The AMJ is better than chocraine resurch? You do realise what the difference is dont you? Chocraine is META-resurch

your joking right? The AMJ is better than chocraine resurch? You do realise what the difference is dont you? Chocraine is META-resurch

I am talking avout "Science" "Nature" journals and many more...I get free AIAA journals....I can get free http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/ ... all of anything you can think of I get them free.

The general public of USA could care less for any science information.

again they are all first line resurch not meta resurch

again they are all first line resurch not meta resurch

what is this meta research you speak of? I do not understand the term.

my apologies, i thought you would have come across the term at uni.

say your doing your PHD and you do your resurch as a doubble blind randomised controled trial of say 1000 people and you publish it

It goes in say the BMJ

Now cochrain would take your resurch (if they found it riguress enough, has to be double blind) and the resurch from 10 other people all who have done resurch on the same thing around the world and they put those studies together and they get THERE results from all these trials. So say your study found that asprin caused heart atacks in 20% of your population, and the 100 other studies all found NO risk then they would conclude that something else was going on in your study because it doesnt match the other studies. THATS meta resurch.

oh well than I do get this meta research you speak of. I can't tell you the name of it thou. Anyways why would general public in USA need it? they don't do research...

Say your doctor perscribes you a drug and the news says that a journal artical is saying it causes such and such. If you were worried you could look it up on cochran and SEE wether its an isolated statistcal error or if it is a serious risk. Yes it requires people to get off there asses and do the checking but its there if people want it. THATS why the goverment pays for it

Say your doctor perscribes you a drug and the news says that a journal artical is saying it causes such and such. If you were worried you could look it up on cochran and SEE wether its an isolated statistcal error or if it is a serious risk. Yes it requires people to get off there asses and do the checking but its there if people want it. THATS why the goverment pays for it


http://scholar.google.com/

...once again US public does not care for such.

http://library.cern.ch/HEPLW/12/papers/1/Figure1.jpg

never herd of that before, and who is to say how much of the public dont care? The point is its an option for those who want it along with journlists, people doing private rescurch, universities, schools, doctors, anyone. Rather than the UNI's paying for it indervidually the goverment decided it was better to just pay for the whole countrie:D

never herd of that before, and who is to say how much of the public dont care? The point is its an option for those who want it along with journlists, people doing private rescurch, universities, schools, doctors, anyone. Rather than the UNI's paying for it indervidually the goverment decided it was better to just pay for the whole countrie:D

what they didn't teach you that in Europe? :rolleyes:

Many paleontology papers are now published on line. The cost of physical publication was more and more prohibitive for such a small number of journal purchasers. If done wisely on-line publishing will be a boon to science but if the line gets 'fudged' between accepted papers and other writings, then the bricks building the foundation for scientific methodology may collapse. 'Science' will mean something different than it does today...more seat of the pants. This isn't necessarily a 'bad' thing as science disciplines are getting more and more hamstrung by the intertia of wading through all the literature that has passed before. It might be actually be liberating for creative thinking.

we should invest in hacking more, that way any information online will be free. Torrent the scientific journals, all of them. =p

um im not IN Europe, why do you keep assuming that?

Im an Australian and im IN Australia

um im not IN Europe, why do you keep assuming that?

Im an Australian and im IN Australia

I don't know, you seem to have that "I know everything in this universe" attitude that Europeans have and than their Beagle 24 crashes on Mars with all other Beagles'

Any research that the government pays for - which in the U.S. is probably 95%+ of what gets published in science journals - should be free for everyone. My tax money directly paid for it, I should get to read it.

Any research that the government pays for - which in the U.S. is probably 95%+ of what gets published in science journals - should be free for everyone. My tax money directly paid for it, I should get to read it.
First, your going-in position is wrong. Governments fund a small portion of the research performed in the advanced world.

That said, go to a library.

Your tax money does not pay for the publication of the journals, nor for the web sites the publishers maintain for on-line access to journal articles, nor for a lot of things involved in the road from research to publication. The government paid for the research. The papers are often a side offshoot of the work for which the government paid. Nonetheless, libraries available to the public do carry scientific journals, either in print or in electronic form.

The responsibility of the government is not to make sure that Joe Blow has access to the scientific work bought and paid for with Joe's tax money. After all, much of Joe's taxes pay for things from which he will never a direct benefit. Joe still benefits indirectly, and these indirect benefits can vastly exceed the taxes Joe paid.

The responsibility of the government is to make their best effort in seeing that the scientific research bought and paid for by the government results in the greatest benefits to the people who paid for that research. Spending extra funds to make sure that Joe Blow has full, direct, and free access to that work is counterproductive. Private companies can do this kind of thing much more efficiently and cheaply than can any government.

Suppose the government did do the work currently done by publishing companies so that you could get the articles free on the net. How much more in taxes do you think you would have to pay to make this possible?

First, your going-in position is wrong. Governments fund a small portion of the research performed in the advanced world. You'll note that I said 95% of what gets published in science journals. Corporations with their own labs do a lot of research, yes, but most of that is never published in journals. The vast majority of the research that goes into journals is funded by the government in some manner or other. Open any science journal and try to find a paper that isn't by either a university or a national lab. You might be able to find one, but it will take you a while. That said, go to a library.
Very few public libraries have access to science journals. You would need to go to a large, well-funded university library; good luck if you don't happen to live near one. And even if you are at a large university library, you still won't be able to get all the journals. Since journal subsciptions are $1000+/year, no library can afford to carry all of them. Your tax money does not pay for the publication of the journals, nor for the web sites the publishers maintain for on-line access to journal articles, nor for a lot of things involved in the road from research to publication.
What cost? The cost of maintaing a web page that serves up pdf files? The "cost of publishing" is very close to zero. As for your bit about "a lot of things involved in the road from research to publication," what exactly are you talking about? The scientist authors write, make graphics, and format the articles for free. Other scientists peer-review and edit them for free. The publisher does virtually nothering, other than sitting in the middle and making a huge amount of money from other people's work.

The responsibility of the government is not to make sure that Joe Blow has access to the scientific work bought and paid for with Joe's tax money.
Forget about your hypothetical Joe Blow. What about making sure ther government researchers in the same field can get access to the results?
Spending extra funds to make sure that Joe Blow has full, direct, and free access to that work is counterproductive. Private companies can do this kind of thing much more efficiently and cheaply than can any government.
"More efficiently and cheaply"? Your faith in the efficiency of the free market is heart-warming, but I’m afraid it’s badly out of touch with reality. A one-year online subscription to the Journal of the American Chemical Society is $3165. For the Journal of Algebra, it's $10100. Yes, over ten thousand dollars! The Journal of Theoretical and Mathamatical Physics? $3200. I somehow suspect that the government could set up a web page that serves pdfs for a little bit less than that. This is a classic example of what economists call market failure.

Suppose the government did do the work currently done by publishing companies so that you could get the articles free on the net. How much more in taxes do you think you would have to pay to make this possible?
As I said, the cost of publishing journals is close to zero because journal companies don't really do anything - all the work is done by the scientists for free. Also, the governmnet would no longer have to pay for thousands of individual labs and university libraries to each buy subscriptions to their relevant journals so that they can read about the work that other government-sponsored scientists did.

You'll note that I said 95% of what gets published in science journals. Corporations with their own labs do a lot of research, yes, but most of that is never published in journals. The vast majority of the research that goes into journals is funded by the government in some manner or other.
Prove it. I just leafed through a couple of my journals, IEEE Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence and IEEE Transactions on Man, Systems, and Cybernetics. It's not anywhere near 95%. Sponsors of published works include industry (the biggest sponsor by my unscientific survey), various national-level agencies of various countries (Hint: The US is not the only advanced nation on the planet), and even state agencies.

For the sake of argument I will assume that your preposterous 95% figure is correct.

What cost? The cost of maintaing a web page that serves up pdf files? The "cost of publishing" is very close to zero.
Wrong. You need people who decide what is worthy of publishing and what is not, people who edit the articles, people who make all the articles have the same look-and-feel, people who collate the articles, people who maintain the websites, ... Need I go on? Keeping people on-staff is a very, very expensive proposition. Salary is just the start. Benefits. Work space. Equipment. In the eyes of an employer, an employee's salary represents less than 1/2 of the cost of said employee. The employer needs to make enough to cover salary plus all those other things before they even start to turn a profit.

Let's assume we switched over to your idealized version of how things should work. What a mess. Suppose you are a researcher in, say pattern analysis. Do you know how many government agencies world-wide support research in this field? Without journals, you will have to go to each and every agency to find work in your field. Go to JPL and will see papers on spacecraft guidance intermingled with papers on entering the atmosphere of Mars before you find the one paper you want on using pattern analysis on Mar. Go to the Army and you will see even more papers that have nothing to do with your field before you find a few on pattern analysis. Why should any one government agency collate all the papers on pattern analysis? Why should they go beyond their bounds, and how could they go beyond their bounds, say to Italy or California, to get their work on pattern analysis?

The ideal world you want is an ideal nightmare. The world we have isn't perfect, but that's life. To quote Voltaire, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

Well, I am willing to pay for some works done, simply because i know that there is not a public market for them and the researcher needs funding or some form of income.

Researchers don't get money from the journals, we usually pay to publish there.

First, your going-in position is wrong. Governments fund a small portion of the research performed in the advanced world.
Actually that depends on the country, but even in the USA where a lot of research is funded (but not necessarily conducted) by private agencies governmental fundings make out a significant amount. That being said, many governmental funding bodies like e.g. the NIH require that the publications of research funded by them has to be openly accessible.
Whether the costs that journals charge is justifiable is debatable. However open journals are in the rising. Some, like e.g. PloS or certain BMC journals even have a very high impact factor.

D H:

I don't know about IEEE journals; I generally only read physics, chemistry, and math journals. In those journals, virtually everything is government-sponsored. But it could certainly be different for other fields.

Let me explain how journal publication works in the physical sciences, since I'm getting the impression that it must be very different in engineering. When someone submits a paper to a journal, the journal sends it off to other more or less random scientists in the field for review and editing. If the scientists like it and give it a positive review, it gets published. The journals have very specific guidelines about how the submitted papers are to be formatted, what the tables and graphics need to look like, etc. If they don't conform, the journal bounces the article back to the author and tells them to fix it. It's not like the authors are sending the journal a .doc file with some jpegs attached, and the journal editors have to transform it into a publishable article. The journals basically get read-to-publish papers for free; all of the work was done by someone else at no cost to the journal. Then they put pdfs of the papers on a web server and charge everyone $3k/year for access.

I doubt very seriously that this reflects anything like the true cost of publishing these journals - if the term "publishing" can even be accurately applied to setting up a web page where you serve out pdfs of papers that other people prepared for you for free.