Richard Charkin on free information vs freedom of information

Richard Charkin, CEO of Macmillan Nature, sent this post from a Blackberry at Bangalore airport. Nature has a blog (http://blogs.nature.com/wp/nascent) debating this subject. Peer-reviewed journals such as Nature differ in intent from Prospect, which is primarily a journal of opinion, but we both exist to disseminate high level views, which may or may not be empirical, in as objective a fashion as possible (which is different from claiming to only publish objective views). In the case of Nature and other scientific journals, the emphasis necessarily must rest with fact and evidence-based views and debate. The internet, if unfiltered, does not apply the checks, balances and context which this often high-octane information requires. It may thus be seen as the Philosopher's Stone or Tower of Babel. What price a labrador in the land of the blind?

Over to Richard:

The Internet has dramatically impacted the world of scientific publishing. Nearly all library research, editing, reviewing, selecting and distributing takes place electronically. At Nature Publishing group (npg.nature.com) for instance 95% of research articles are submitted and reviewed electronically. 90% of the articles are read via the Internet. 50% of revenue is unambiguously electronic and growing fast. Readership of scientific papers has dramatically increased by virtue of the much-improved access. In the past a scientist would have to trek to the library, search paper indexes and wait while the relevant (and sometimes irrelevant) paper was discovered. That process now takes seconds in the comfort of the lab or home. It is also more comprehensive and effective, particularly as most scientific journals are indexed by Medline (medline.cos.com) and references are linked through a collaboration of publishers, CrossRef (www.crossref.org ). All science publishers offer all current publications to scientists worlwide. In addition they are all investing in the conversion of their archives of past research to ensure that previous discoveries are not lost.

No other industry (except perhaps pornography) has adapted its processes and business models to the digital world so rapidly and efficiently. Interestingly this transformation has happened without government encouragement, support or subsidy. Customer and business imperatives drove the change.

In parallel there is a groundswell of opinion supporting the 'open access' movement (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access). The ideology of open access is that scientific research information should be available to all at no cost. There are various models. Philanthropy supports the excellent journal PLoS Biology (biology.plosjournals.org. Research funders such as the Wellcome Foundation (www.wellcome.ac.uk ) offer to pay for their research papers to be published provided the publisher distributes the articles free electronically. Some funders may make open access publication mandatory for research funded by them.

So far there has been rather more noise than action. Only a very small proportion of articles is published this way but the evangelists of open access certainly tell a good story and have accumulated some high-level support.

The idea of free information is undeniably attractive, particularly where the information (for instance developments in medicine) is for the public good.

Unfortunately, free information can be sub-standard (compare free magazines and newspapers with the 'real thing'). It can also be associated with propaganda - think Soviet Russia where books were almost given away and I don't suppose many of the copies of Mao's Little Red Book were ever purchased as opposed to donated.

Of course it is legitimate to demand good value for information and publishers need to deliver ever better services as well as affordable prices. Nature is available on over 8 million desktops at an average cost of 50p per annum amazing value for the world's leading scientific publication.

Market forces rather than producer-driven policies have traditionally led to progress. The scientific information business is no exception. There is room for many business models which will compete in the marketplace and survive or fail. Successful businesses will experiment and innovate.

But we should not assume that giving away information is morally superior to selling it, nor that free information is necessarily an improvement on freedom of information.

Richard Charkin (see charkinblog.macmillan.com for more of his comment on life, the universe and publishing).