Publishers vs. Access Advocates

Brussels Declaration stakes a claim in favor of traditional role

By Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 3/15/2007

Not long after a report disclosed a publishers’ meeting with a public relations executive to form a response to calls for public access to government-funded research, the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) sponsored the Brussels Declaration in February.

The document reads much like the start of a PR campaign. In ten bullet points, STM outlines what it calls “self-evident” values, ranging from the sensible (“one size fits all solutions will not work”) to the obvious (“publishing in all media has associated costs”) to the outright contentious (“open deposit of accepted manuscripts risks destabilizing subscription revenues and undermining peer review”).

The declaration, signed by 35 major publishers and eight trade associations, is the latest development in a once-again simmering battle between public access advocates (including libraries) and publishers. After the report of the publishers’ meetings, public access advocates seized on the issue by releasing a statement of support from one of its allies, the American Society for Cell Biology, which called for free public access to government-funded research.

Officially, the Brussels Declaration was issued to coincide with the European Commission’s Communication on Scientific Information and its Conference on Scientific Publishing in the European Research Area, held in Brussels. The declaration touts the role of publishers in the “irreplaceable” peer-review process, even citing peer review in assailing evidence offered by public access proposals