Scientific Messages in Danger «Between Publication and Prohibition»!
Academic journals were printed to be read, and scientific research was created to be published. The discoveries and results achieved by scientists and thinkers across various fields are the rightful property of researchers and those seeking to benefit from and expand their knowledge. Between the hoped-for dream and the desired reality, many aspirations, visions, and set goals fall victim to material gains, personal agendas, and individual ambitions.
I attempt to delve into the subject of scientific research and academic studies, which have been marred by considerable confusion between authors and publishers, between publishers and research centers, and between research centers and researchers. I have had conversations and discussions with numerous professors across the globe, and I will endeavor to synthesize what I was told with what I read in Robert Darnton’s book, *The Book Between Yesterday and Today and Tomorrow*. I found that he dedicated a beautiful article to precisely describing what happens behind the scenes of scientific journals that publish academic research. The author asserts that scientific papers have become so costly that they are no longer producible. The difficulties have reached such an extreme that they seem like a species threatened with extinction.
The reason lies in commercial publishers raising the prices of journals, particularly in the natural sciences, to levels that have caused chaos in the budgets of research libraries. To preserve their journal collections, these libraries were forced to drastically reduce their acquisition of scientific papers. Due to the decline in library demand, university presses were compelled to limit the publication of scientific papers in less popular fields, thereby closing the door to academics who wished to publish their research therein. This crisis is related to market dynamics rather than scientific value. The author emphasizes that the impact of this crisis is felt most acutely by those who need to overcome it the most: the new generation of academics, whose professional futures depend on publishing their research.
The author provides an example of this irrational price surge: publishing in the most expensive journals has become a special privilege crucial for professional advancement, particularly in advanced sciences. University libraries find it extremely difficult to cancel these subscriptions, forcing them to coexist with them by sacrificing the publication of scientific papers in exchange for maintaining their journal subscriptions. Until recently, scientific papers accounted for at least half of the acquisitions budget.
University presses previously relied on selling 800 copies of each scientific paper to libraries. Today, that number has dropped to 300, which is insufficient to cover costs. Consequently, university presses can no longer guarantee the sale of books that libraries previously could not resist. For instance, Volume 1 of *The Papers of Benjamin Franklin* sold 8,047 copies in 1959. In contrast, Volume 33, published in 1997, sold only 753 copies.
This situation has led university presses to publish fewer academic books and focus their releases on titles dealing with more popular local topics. Researchers have protested this trend, arguing that many scientific papers remain unpublished, and as the saying goes, "much like little." Critics accuse professors of writing for each other rather than addressing topics of interest to the general public. Undoubtedly, scientific papers can become a malady; they appear to be killing specific disciplines such as literary criticism, where jargon and symbolism repel ordinary readers.
The author poses a crucial question: Can an author of a valuable scientific paper containing important but unengaging material expect it to be published? The answer is that if you ask professors and publishers, you will surely be frustrated, as many recount stories of excellent but unsold scientific papers. The academic landscape is highly complex; viewed commercially, its reality appears bleak. Regardless of whether entire publishing houses will collapse, there is a clear conclusion: scientific papers are undoubtedly at risk.
This risk particularly affects assistant professors, who have heard the adage: "If you don’t publish, you’re finished." This translates to: If you do not publish your scientific paper, you will not be tenured as a professor. It is already difficult for a new PhD graduate to secure a job, but this is merely the beginning of the difficulties. If you enter the office of an editor at a university press, you will see stacks of dissertations, dozens of them. The editor will sigh and explain that the press can publish only two or three of them, adding with a deeper sigh that the press is under immense pressure from tenure committees that demand to see printed books accompanied by reviews and reader reports.
The author proposes solutions, suggesting that commercial entities like Amazon take the lead, because cyberspace, like the economy, requires regulation, but academics must set the standards, as they are responsible for defining the quality control of the academic world.
Far from the ideal dream, electronic scientific papers may meet the needs of the academic community at points where problems are concentrated. They could provide an isolated means to examine these issues and open a new space for expanding knowledge. The world of knowledge is changing rapidly, not allowing anyone to predict what it will look like ten years from now. However, I believe it will remain within the orbit of Gutenberg. Although this orbit will expand, credit goes to a new source of energy: the electronic book, which will serve as an addition rather than a replacement for the great Gutenberg machine.
What transpired with some friends is close to what was mentioned earlier; the field is the same, and the concerns are one and the same.
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