The Next Information Revolution - Can Institutional Repositories and Self-archiving Transform Scholarly Communications?

The basic model for scholarly communication has remained unchanged for over three hundred years. The scientific journal provides authors with a means of communicating their new research while laying claim to the intellectual priority of their work. At the same time, readers are assured of the quality of what they read (via peer review) and of long-term access (via the archive). However, over the past 30 years there has been growing concern at the printed journal's ability to fulfil it role as a means of communication. As journal prices increased faster than library budgets fewer and fewer readers were able to access the journals, leading to the well-documented 'serials crises'.

The widespread introduction of the Internet in the 1990s has provided some improvements in communication. Papers can often be published more quickly online than in print. More importantly, readers can get access to the papers at their desks rather than having to visit the library. Now, with site licences and consortia deals the downward trend in readers has been reversed for the first time in many years.

However, the fundamental problem remains. The rate of increase in cost to libraries for electronic access continues to be greater than the increase in library budgets. Therefore, we will see the same pattern as has been observed over the past 30 years - the number of people with electronic access will slowly decline as the price of access increases.

Self-archiving and institutional repositories give libraries and researchers their first chance to fundamentally change the way that scientific information is communicated. This paper will show how by harnessing the power of the Internet, authors will be able to distribute their work to all interested readers - not just those lucky enough to have a subscription. It will describe how universities can take responsibility for archiving their intellectual wealth and making it more widely available. Finally, the paper will show how the adoption of self-archiving and institutional repositories could bring about a change in the financial model of journal publishing, bringing cost savings to society, improving communications, while still preserving the important functions of peer-review.

David C. Prosser
SPARC Europe, 99 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6JX, UK
Telephone : +44 (0) 1865 284 451
E-mail: david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk