Serial Conversations

An Interview with Heather Joseph

Mary Page, Contributor

Bonnie Parks, Column Editor

Page is Head ofPiscataway, NJ 08Parks is TechnolMemorial Librar97203, USA; emai

doi:10.1016/j.serrev.

Heather Joseph talks about her career with SPARC and BioOne. She discusses theNIH mandate that NIH-funded research will be deposited into PubMed Central, andshe shares her views on some of the controversial issues the mandate has raised aboutcopyright, peer review, and embargo periods. She also addresses the recent decisionby the Harvard faculty to make their scholarly output accessible through theuniversity’s institutional repository, and she suggests ways that librarians can helptheir faculties prepare for open access. Serials Review 2008; 34:154–157.

Introduction

Heather Joseph is a respected authority on scholarlycommunication issues, and more recently, she hasbecome well known for her efforts within the openaccess movement. Her work is informed by her extensiveexperience in the scholarly publishing industry. Cur-rently, Heather is the executive director of SPARC, theScholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.She leads SPARC’s advocacy efforts to support wide-

Acquisitions, Rutgers University Libraries,854, USA; email: mary.page@gmail.com.ogy and Catalog Librarian, W.W. Clarky, University of Portland, Portland, ORl: parks@up.edu.

2008.03.003

154

spread adoption of open access to scholarly research;identifies and negotiates partnerships with scholarlypublishers; builds coalitions of support; and generallyrepresents the interests and values of SPARC to thestakeholders in scholarly communication.Before coming to SPARC, Heather served as the pre-

sident and chief operating officer of BioOne, a SPARCpublisher partner. Under her leadership, BioOne helpedsmall scholarly societies in the biological sciences main-tain their independence while bringing their publicationsonline. For her work in successfully launching and estab-lishing BioOne, Heather was awarded the 2002 Associa-tion of Learned and Professional Society Publishers’award for services to not-for-profit publishing. She alsoserved as elected president of the Society for ScholarlyPublishing for the 2004–2005 term.In this interview, Heather Joseph discusses her career

and what led her to SPARC and BioOne. She also dis-cusses the National Institutes of Health (NIH) mandatethat NIH-funded research will be deposited into PubMedCentral, and she shares her views on some of the contro-versial issues it has raised about copyright, peer review,and embargo periods. She addresses the recent decisionby the Harvard faculty to make their publications openlyaccessible through Harvard’s institutional repository andwhy this decision and the NIH mandate are compatible.Finally, Heather Joseph has suggestions for ways thatlibrarians can help their faculties prepare for the imple-mentation of the NIH public access mandate.

Mary Page (MP): Everyone knows you through SPARCand ARL. Could you tell us about your career beforeARL, and how you began working with serials?

Parks / Serials Review 34 (2008) 154–157

Heather Joseph (HJ): I watched the movie All the Presi-dents Men one too many times as a teenager and startedout studying journalism at American University here inWashington, DC. I originally thought I wanted to be areporter, but my degree work, along with an internshipat a start-up weekly newspaper here in the city, taught metwo things: first, I hated to ask people questions that theydidn’t particularly want to answer; and second, I foundthe business of publishing much more interesting than I’dever imagined. I wanted to get an MBA to learn moreabout how to do this, so I searched for a job that wouldhelp out with tuition and let me keep a hand in thepublishing arena.I was fortunate enough to find the perfect position with

the American Astronomical Society (AAS). It was myintroduction to the world of scholarly publication andscientific journals, and I could not have possibly landed ina better place at a better time. When I started there in1990, the Web and e-mail were not yet ubiquitous, butbecausemany of theAASmembersworked in physics andrelated disciplines, they were early users of ARPANET,the precursor to the Internet. The AAS had an e-mailaccount, so my introduction to the world of scholarlyjournals was inextricably linked to my introduction withnetworked communications. Talk about imprinting!From day one, I remember the members asking questionslike, “When are you going to learn to take our meetingabstracts electronically?” and “you all should figure out away for us to send in our journal articles over e-mail.” Itwas a constant chorus of questions that have evolvedthroughout the past eighteen years of working primarilyin the scholarly society publishing arena.

MP: SPARC was launched in 1998. Can you talk aboutsome of its accomplishments? Can you talk about anySPARC undertakings that weren’t successful?

HJ: My introduction to SPARC came in 2000, when Iwashired to launch BioOne. As you know, this SPARCinitiative raised money from the library community,invested it in non-profit publishers specifically to converttheir journals from print to electronic format, and createdan online platform to deliver their content as widely aspossible. We started out working with just thirty-seventitles: BioOne has thrived and now provides its service tomore than 140 journals. Online journal publishing hascertainly been one of SPARC’s major success stories.On a broader scale, I think that one central contribu-

tion of SPARC has been raising the profile of scholarlycommunications issues. The issue has expanded from alibrary-centric issue of “journals cost too much” into aconversation about leveraging new opportunities to ex-pand the scope of dissemination of the results of science,research, and scholarship. It involves not just the librarycommunity, but also researchers and the academy, as wellas national and international policymakers. The issue ofaccess to and use of scholarly output has become one ofgreat public interest.One key to SPARC’s ability to produce successful

outcomes is its operating structure—we have threedistinct program areas—education, incubation, and

155

advocacy—and we work hard to keep vibrant effortsmoving in each of these areas simultaneously. Forexample, we’ve created an extremely robust educationalcampaign around open access: introducing open access asa concept, outlining potential mechanisms to implementit, and providing resources for spreading the word. Butalong with the educational efforts, we also make sure thatwe put resources into incubating various open accessbusiness models, as well advocating vigorously for publicpolicies that create an environment in which open accesscan thrive. Certainly the advocacy work that SPARC hasbeen deeply engaged in, particularly in calling for publicaccess to the results of federally funded research, havebeen quite effective.As for SPARC endeavors that weren’t quite the

successes we’d hoped, I’d say the lessons center mainlyaround issues of scale. For example, one of our earliestprograms was an effort to introduce lower-pricedjournals into the marketplace to compete directly withextremely high-priced titles—an effort to infuse anelement of competition into the journal market. WhileSPARCwas successful in helping to shepherd a number ofsuch titles to market, I couldn’t honestly say that theoverall impact was what we’d originally hoped for. Butagain, I think that’s largely an issue of scale—theoverhead and resources needed to introduce new titlesin the numbers that would be needed to truly begin tobring prices down systemwide are quite significant.

MP: How do you respond to critics who say that theyhave to subscribe to both the SPARC title and thecommercial title it’s competing with?

HJ: On the one hand, I completely understand thatSPARC’s alternative titles can be looked at as just anadded expense. But I think we have to take the big pictureapproach and understand that the introduction of thesetitles served a crucial purpose. They gave notice that thelibrary community was serious about its message thatbusiness as usual would no longer be an option and thatthe community was more than capable of enlisting thesupport and partnership of researchers, authors, andeditors who agreed that publishing models needed tochange.SPARC alternative journals were, and are, a very real

investment in our ability to marshal real resources anddevelop viable alternatives within the scholarly publish-ing system. They are an important demonstration oflibraries “walking the walk” as well as “talking the talk”about change. And, not inconsequentially, the SPARCalternative journals have made progress establishinghigh-quality status in terms of impact factors, as well ashelping to moderate price increases with the journalswith which they directly compete.

MP: SPARC has become a mature organization with awell-defined mission and record of success. How do yousee its future development?

HJ: With the community’s strong support, SPARC hasgrown considerably over the past ten years, which is

Parks / Serials Review 34 (2008) 154–157

immensely encouraging. Besides deepening our presenceand programs in the US and in Canada, where SPARCwas first established, we’ve grown considerably in ourinternational presence. SPARC Europe has become awell-established, well-respected presence in Europe, andplays a crucial role in advocacy and education efforts,especially on open access and related topics. SPARCJapan, our most recent endeavor, is beginning to make itsmark on issues relating to scholarly publishing. We fullyexpect that our opportunities to work collaborativelywill expand as each organization increases it capacity inits own regions, and we look forward to widening thecircle of partners. We think there’s tremendous oppor-tunity to do this not only geographically, but also interms of partnering with new constituencies.

MP: Let’s talk about the recent National Institutes ofHealth mandate that all NIH-funded research will bedeposited into PubMed Central.1 Is this a defining mo-ment for the open access movement?

HJ: I think it is. The debate and discussion on this parti-cular policy played out very publicly over the past severalyears. Interest wasn’t just limited to the academy andtrade publications; the level of coverage by the popularpress highlighted how closely the world was followingthis issue. The fact that Congress signed this policy intolaw imbues a significance that cannot be overstated. Thisisn’t simply an interesting proposal by one special inte-rest group: this is a fully vetted, thoroughly discussedpolicy that is now the law of the land. Certainly thatrepresents a watershed moment for open access, and ithas implications far beyond a single government agencyin the United States.

MP: Publisher groups have stated that the NIH mandateinfringes on their copyrights. Is that true?

HJ: No. There is nothing in the policy that inherentlyconflicts with, undermines, or threatens copyright. Thepolicy is concerned with contract terms, not copyrightexceptions. The proposed provision simply provides thatin exchange for public funding, investigators mustdeposit copies of articles resulting from that fundinginto PubMed Central so that they are available to thepublic. It’s simply incorrect to say that the NIH policy, asrequired by Congress, requires a violation of copyright.In fact, it requires compliance with copyright. Congressincludes a proviso to the language in the bill’s text thatspecifically reads: “Provided, that the NIH shall imple-ment the public access policy in a manner consistent withcopyright law.”2

MP: Another concern is peer review. How will the NIHmandate affect peer review?

HJ: The notion that the NIH public access policy willsomehow negatively affect the system of peer review hasgot to be the single most oft-repeated misconceptionabout the NIH policy (and in fact, public access policiesin general) that I’ve run across. I’ve seen it presented in

156

two ways. First is the concern that somehow the NIHpolicy will force large scale changes in the economics ofhow journals are currently supported. Presumably, theconcern is that the NIH policy will lead to immediate,widespread cancellations of journal subscriptions bylibraries, which represent the lion’s share of revenue formost journal publishers. This will lead to a dramaticreduction in the revenue that publishers currently have toallocate to the administration of the peer review system.Of course, most libraries will not cancel a journal simplybecause some subset of its articles appears a year later inPubMed Central. Libraries base cancellation decisionslargely on a combination of the criteria of price, demandby faculty, and availability of funds. They are far morelikely to cancel a journal because of a price increase im-plemented by a publisher or a budget cut imposed by aninstitution than on the availability of some of the contentin another source.The second iteration of the peer review argument that I

have seen notes that if NIH-funded articles are nowroutinely collected into a database that is administeredby a government agency, the government will somehowthen consider itself as playing an active role in the overallpublishing process and will change the current peer re-view process in a way that will undermine its integrity.This is, of course, not the intention of the NIH policy,which neither stipulates nor encourages such a change inthe government’s role. The NIH policy will not have anydirect effect on the current system of peer review. Peerreview will continue to be carried out voluntarily byresearchers, because it is a key responsibility of contri-buting members of the scientific research community.

MP: Are you satisfied with the twelve-month embargo?Is there interest in shortening the embargo period or eli-minating it completely?

HJ: The concerns of those who think that twelve monthsis too long an embargo period completely resonate withme, but from a pragmatic standpoint this was a necessarycompromise. The NIH policy represents a sea change inthe parameters of the scholarly communications market-place. With this policy we’ve leapfrogged from informa-tion being locked up behind exclusive distribution licensesperpetually to an embargo period limited to no longerthan one single year. That’s an enormous step forward.Also, the policy allows the researcher to determine theembargo period. Remember, this is not a static twelve-month requirement; it calls for NIH-funded articles to bemade publicly available “no longer than twelve monthsafter the official date of publication.”3 This gives thepower to the research community to determine what isbest in terms of the timing of an article’s accessibility.

MP: How would you respond to a researcher whodeposits his work in his institutional repository where itwill be freely available? Why does he have to deposit itinto PubMed Central as well?

HJ: First of all, I applaud researchers who take the criticalstep of ensuring broad access to their work by placing it in

Parks / Serials Review 34 (2008) 154–157

an institutional repository. They clearly understand thevalue of sharing their material so that it can be built uponby their colleagues. For those researchers, the transfer of acopy of that material into PubMed Central should be afairly trivial process. They’ve already got the manuscriptprepared, and the NIH has found that it takes a re-searcher less than ten minutes on average to deposit amanuscript using their current ingest system.Additionally, I’d expect over time that institutional

repositorymanagers will work out some system or systemswith the NIH to either allow PubMed Central to sweeplocal repositories to automatically harvest approved, NIH-funded manuscripts, or for the local repository to auto-matically upload such manuscripts directly to PubMedCentral. Once the paper is on deposit in PubMed Centralin addition to the local repository, the advantages arewider potential readership through the linkages thatare provided from PubMed Central to the myriad otherNIH databases. That’s where the really exciting oppor-tunities are for researchers to leverage this new resourceand find new ways to make research connections.

MP: Harvard is considering making the scholarship of itsfaculty freely available through its institutional reposi-tory. Is this compatible with the NIH mandate? Are youconcerned about a proliferation of institutional silos?

HJ: The recent vote by the Harvard University faculty toimplement a policy that makes open access the defaultsetting for their research is as groundbreaking as the NIHpolicy and notable because it is an author-driven initia-tive rather than a top-down mandate.4 I see it as abso-lutely compatible with the NIH policy: they share theultimate goal of expanding access to and use of scholarlyoutput, and both policies explicitly recognize the impor-tance of preserving this material in digital repositories.There is no mention of exclusivity in either policy, andnothing that says any article that appears in PubMedCentral or in the Harvard repository must stay “siloed”within those confines. So I welcome both as two verydifferent but very effective and compatible approaches.

MP: Do you think the NIHmandate will become a modelfor other government funding agencies? If yes, have youbegun working on that effort?

HJ: We are already in a kind of “what came first, thechicken or the egg?” type of situation when it comes tothe proliferation of public access policies! For instance,much of the language in the recently adopted NIH policywas first circulated in 2004. Around the same time,similar language was being considered by other funders(both public and private), such as the Research CouncilsUnited Kingdom, the Canadian Institutes of Health

157

Research, the European Research Council, the WellcomeTrust, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and others.We’ve now seen similarly worded policies adopted by allof these entities. It’s entirely probable that other UnitedStates agencies, and agencies abroad, will follow suit. Iwouldn’t necessarily expect perfect clones of the NIHpolicy; there should and will be differences that reflectthe unique nature of different disciplines. But I do thinkthat basic premise of open access to the results of re-search will be a path that the majority of agencies thatinvest in research will pursue, as they increasingly recog-nize that broad access provides a greater return on theirinvestment.Librarians are on the forefront of helping to prepare

both faculty members and administrators to understandand comply with the NIH public access policy. They canhelp smooth the way for compliance on two main fronts:helping faculty understand the technical aspects of depo-siting manuscripts (how to do it and who can help), andthey can help faculty understand what is needed in termsof effective rights management. For example, has thefaculty member reserved the rights needed before signingcopyright transfer. There is a great deal of activity hap-pening on campuses, especially since the NIH policy wassigned into law in late December 2007.5 There are alsosome good, general resources that already have beendeveloped to help librarians communicate with facultymembers, university counsels, offices of sponsored re-search, etc. I’d point to the NIH public access policyWeb site, the SPARC Web site, and the ARLWeb site asjust a few examples of these resources, with more comingon-line regularly.

MP: Any final thoughts that you’d like to share with theSerials Review readership?

HJ: Just to say thank you for the chance to talk with youall!

Notes

1. National Institutes of Health, “Revised Policy on EnhancingPublic Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research,” http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-033.html (accessed March 3, 2008).

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Office of Com-munications, “Harvard to Collect, Disseminate Scholarly Articlesfor Faculty,” http://www.fas.harvard.edu/home/news_and_events/releases/scholarly_02122008.html (accessed March 3, 2008).

5. U.S. Congress. House. Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008.HR 2764. 110th Cong., 1st sess. Congressional Record 153, no.193 (Dec. 17, 2007): H15645.