FRACTURED PRISM: The Association of American Publishers is in hot water with university presses and research librarians, as well as open-access advocates, thanks to a new undertaking that it describes as an attempt to “safeguard the scientific and medical peer-review process and educate the public about the risks of proposed government interference with the scholarly communication process.”
The effort, known as the Partnership for Research Integrity in Science & Medicine, or Prism, is the latest tactic in a continuing public-relations war between the association and the open-access camp.
In January the association created a ruckus by hiring Eric Dezenhall, a high-powered media consultant described by the journal Nature as a “pit bull” (The Chronicle, January 26). His advice to the publishers, says Nature, included a suggestion that the association focus on messages like “Public access equals government censorship.”
That advice echoes throughout Prism’s Web site (http://www.Prismcoalition.org) in language like this: “Policies are being proposed that threaten to introduce undue government intervention in science and scholarly publishing, putting at risk the integrity of scientific research.”
The site, which was unveiled late last month, also warns that the peer-review process will be undermined “by compromising the viability of nonprofit and commercial journals that manage and fund it.”
Prism arrives as the Senate prepares to consider a spending bill for the National Institutes of Health that would require research supported by the agency to be made publicly available, as part of the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central, no later than 12 months after its publication. The House of Representatives has already approved such a measure.
Reactions to Prism have been widespread and vigorous, with some commentators calling for a boycott of the association.
University presses are backing away from the effort. In an e-mail message, James D. Jordan, president and director of the Columbia University Press, told The Chronicle that he had tendered his resignation from the Executive Council of the association’s Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division on August 28, five days after Prism was made public. A task force of the council had put the campaign together; three university presses (Columbia, the University of Chicago Press, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press) have seats on the council.
Mr. Jordan resigned in part because he “had vocally opposed the launch of the Prism Web site and did not subscribe to arguments supporting it and opposing the NIH’s public-access proposals.” The Columbia press remains a member of the publishers’ association and of the scholarly-publishing division, or PSP.
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Other association members share Mr. Jordan’s displeasure. Nawin Gupta, who is journals manager of the Chicago press and a member of the council, said his press “does not support or endorse the spin that is being put at the Prism site.” He also questioned “whether Prism really reflects the overall membership of the PSP in any way.”
Stephen Bourne, chief executive officer of the Cambridge University Press, told The Chronicle in an e-mail message that his press “has in no way been involved in, or consulted on, the Prism initiative.” He characterized Prism’s message as “over-simplistic and ill-judged, with the unwelcome consequence of creating tension between the publishing community and the proponents of Open Access.” Another prominent association member, the Nature Publishing Group, said on its Nascent blog that “we are not involved in Prism and we have not been consulted about it.”
Brian D. Crawford, chairman of the executive council of the association’s Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, acknowledged that the strength of the negative reaction had taken his group by surprise. “We did not expect to have encountered the sort of criticism that we have seen thus far,” he told The Chronicle. “We were truly hoping to establish this as a way to have a very productive dialogue on what are important and nuanced issues.”
The association’s general membership was not consulted by the Prism task force, however. “We sought the input of the executive council that’s representative of our membership,” Mr. Crawford said.
He confirmed that Mr. Dezenhall, the public-relations maven, was still consulting for the publishers’ group, although Mr. Crawford would not say whether the consultant had been directly involved in formulating Prism.
He defended the association against charges that it is anti-open access. “We’re definitely not saying that open access equals faulty science,” he said. “What we’re saying is, it’s important for publishers to have the flexibility to introduce and experiment with whatever business model they wish to, without government intervention.”
The publishers’ group is taking “under advisement” the idea of adding a disclaimer or altering Prism’s language, it said. But Peter Suber, a professor of philosophy at Earlham College and one of the leaders of the open-access movement, said that “the message [of Prism] is a laughingstock. But the lobbying behind the message might be effective.”
http://chronicle.com Section: Research & Publishing Volume 54, Issue 4, Page A13
