ASM Response to Public Library of Science

The Publications Board of the American Society for Microbiology has given careful consideration to the petition posted at the Public Library of Science web site (http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/). The petition commits signing scientists to refuse to submit to, review for, edit for, and subscribe to, journals that do not post their articles on PubMed Central (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/).

ASM strongly believes in the concept of a freely accessible electronic library of articles in the biomedical sciences and will, within the constraints of our program, work to help achieve that goal. ASM is already, and will continue to be, a participant in the HighWire "consortium," which we see as taking a significant step towards sharing information with the scientific community via the Internet. The HighWire publishers are continually reviewing the applicability of new technologies, as well as mechanisms of dissemination; as a result, many searching modes and links have been created for subscribers. Among the ASM-specific features, available now or under implementation, are: i) making the content of our primary-research journals freely accessible 6 months after publication, ii) enabling readers to find related articles within the same journal that they are browsing, iii) limiting a search to a journal's table of contents, iv) simultaneous searching of the more than 200 journals available through HighWire, v) linking from an AEM article to the Agricola database, and vi) inserting links to and from cited abstracts or articles from non-HighWire publishers.

We believe these enhancements provide substantial added value to the scientific content. However, we also recognize that other search capabilities and links may have value to some users. Based on our understanding of the revised guidelines and requirements for participation, which we gained via informal discussions with several members of the PubMed Central (PMC) Advisory Board, ASM has decided to undertake an in-depth analysis and re-examination of the pros and cons of providing ASM journal content to PMC. This analysis should be completed in several months.

We have given equally careful consideration to the ideology and requirements proposed for the Public Library of Science (PLS) and find them too extreme and unrealistic for ASM to support. Any efforts to modify PMC toward becoming the entity described as PLS will make it impossible for ASM to participate. We believe that ceding ownership is a precedent that should never be established. ASM accepts the responsibilities deriving from ownership, such as the correction even after six months of errata, the investigation of ethics problems, and others. There is nothing in the description of PLS that indicates anyone else is ready to assume these responsibilities.

We take particular offense to the PLS petition requesting that authors, referees, and editors refuse to submit or review manuscripts for those journals that do not post articles on PMC. We consider this approach unacceptable and counterproductive to achieving the goal of a freely accessible electronic library. The use of coercion instead of logical argument is antithetical to the very concept of collegiality that makes scientific communications work. If ASM decides to participate in PMC, it will be in spite of, rather than because of, the PLS petition.

This letter will be posted on the ASM web site and may be shared freely. Comments can be sent to ASM at Journals@asmusa.org.

Replies received by May 1, 2001 will be forwarded to the Publications Board for consideration at their next meeting. Replies received after that date will be processed and forwarded quarterly to the Board. Representative comments and the Board's response will be posted on the ASM web site after the Board's meeting in early June.

Martha M. Howe, President

Publications Board Members
Samuel Kaplan, Chair, ASM Publications Board
Judy D. Wall, Applied and Environmental Microbiology
Steven Douglas, Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology
Andrew B. Onderdonk, Journal of Clinical Microbiology
Betty A. Forbes, Clinical Microbiology Reviews
James N. Ihle, Molecular and Cellular Biology
Thomas E. Shenk, Journal of Virology
Graham C. Walker, Journal of Bacteriology
George M. Eliopoulos, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
Alison D. O’Brien, Infection and Immunity
Jack D. Keene, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews
Stanley Maloy, ASM Press