Scientific publishing

As an author of more than 100 journal articles, a reader of almost 40 years of journal subscriptions, and an avid user of many hard-copy and online journals, I have followed with interest the evolution of electronic publishing. My conclusion agrees with that of the business world, namely that online is the future and that most content will be free to the viewer. Professional societies and the commercial publishers are trying to figure out how to respond.

Quality refereeing will remain the endorsement that marks scientific research publications that are worth reading. However, that issue is not necessarily associated with costs that must be paid by the reader or with the origin of the funding that supported the research being reported. The majority of my research has been federally funded and reported in journals published by professional societies, and page charges were paid from the corresponding federal grants and contracts. This sounds like a good argument that such information should be publicly available at very low cost.

The U.S. and European astronomy societies have chosen to provide free online access to journal articles more than a few years old through the NASA-supported Astrophysical Data System (www.adsabs.harvard.edu/). Note that ADS includes much more than astronomy and is a primary resource for Google Scholar. The American Geophysical Union provides free online access to members for all articles published a year or more ago. The American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society offer economical online access to members and subscribers.

The vitality of the chemistry research community depends on ACS leading the evolution of the future rather than dragging its feet all the way.

David L. Huestis
Menlo Park, Calif.