Scholarly journals and those who create them are dedicated to advancing knowledge in their scientific fields through commitment, expertise and sustained investment. That dedication has resulted in the continual expansion of the universe of journals in the 400 years since peer review became the standard for ensuring scientific integrity. That same dedication is responsible for the incredible volume of knowledge that has been published and archived over the centuries, turning the research of the past into the foundation on which the research of the future is built.

If government intervention undermines scholarly journals, will government provide the necessary same level of commitment and long-term investment to publish, disseminate and preserve scientific research?

Unlike scholarly journals, the needs and attentions of government are pulled in many different directions. Recent federal budgets in the United States have proposed reductions in research funding and some federal research libraries are scaling back their operations because of budgetary concerns. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency, which for decades has operated a robust library system containing research of immense value to scientists, policy experts and the general public, had to scale back those library operations because of budget problems.

Publishers of scholarly journals have accepted the responsibility and expense of maintaining the archive of scientific information. To entrust this store of knowledge to the demands of government budget writers and appropriators is to place responsibility for the growth of this repository outside the scholarly community and risk its future accessibility.