Comments on: Open-access research ‘catastrophic’ for Reed Elsevier

By: SC

SC — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:18:30 +0000

“The scientific community can now disseminate beautifully type-set expositions of their own work thanks to LaTeX and the internet without the aid of any commercial enterprise”

As somebody who works in the technology side of the industry I would say “good luck with that”. Comparing online operations at the scale of big players like RE with amateur self-publishing is at best like comparing running amazon.com with selling an item on eBay (and even that relies on eBay’s infrastructure). The move online has changed the cost profile of the business but it certainly hasn’t made it cost-free, the collective investment in online platforms and associated backoffice processes runs into hundreds of millions of £/$/E. This is one thing that publishing companies do bring to the table.

By: Henry

Henry — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:41:53 +0000

Why worry about Elsevier’s shareholders, when billions of people around the world are deprived of the latest academic content? Africa for example has less than 1% access to the latest scientific research. A university needs literally hundreds of millions to access all scientific content. Dropping the Elesvier’s of the world that have hijacked scientific knowledge for far too long will have untold benefits around the world and lift up the developing countries immediately. The model is just outdated…mind boggling that so many still can not see the damage it causes to the world…

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:42:01 +0000

I suppose I don’t care about the impact on Reed Elsevier’s profits, but I’m confused by this rationale “taxpayers support it so it should be free.” Taxpayers support the post office but I still have to buy a stamp to mail a letter. Taxpayers pour money into bridges yet I still have to pay a crossing toll. Taxpayers pour money into higher education, and that hasn’t stopped students from paying tuition.

If taxpayers want the results of research to be freely available to all, they should not only fund the research, but the means of publishing and disseminating that research as well. But I don’t think anyone is arguing for that – “let’s pour more money into funding research and dissemination!”

By: Steve Elliot

Steve Elliot — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:30:29 +0000

As a counterpoint to this article, I suggest that you read Kurt Anderson’s recent article in the Scholary Kitchen entitled
Are Open Access Initiatives “Catastrophic” for Commercial Publishers?

See http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/09/14/are-open-access-initiatives-catastrophic-for-commercial-publishers/

By: Kilburn

Kilburn — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:38:49 +0000

“The problem with the big publishers is that they give less and less, and expect more and more”.

Couldn’t this be said of Universities??

By: bob

bob — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 11:44:03 +0000

Bilking? The money bought something. The editorial work and the printing costs money. In many cases, this is a cross-subsidy where the rich institution pay for the journals and the journals then clean up the work of everyone including the poorer institutions. If we trash the editorial workers at Elsevier, the work will fall through to the original authors. The rich institutions will be able to hire ghost writers and editors to make their work look better and the poor institutions will be out.

Now I’m sure there are a few execs at Elsevier living high on the journal subscription fees, but we shouldn’t forget that the company does do something for its money.

By: David Wojick

David Wojick — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 11:27:39 +0000

The gold OA takeover scenario is premature at best. The US is not going down this road, nor are the Chinese. At this point the UK is going alone and their proposed APC funding is very low, which the research community has noticed. Asking researchers to pay for something they now get free is a tough sell. It is far too soon to sell off Elsevier. This OA bubble may burst while it is still small.

By: David Yetter

David Yetter — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 19:51:50 +0000

Commercial scientific publishers used to provide a two valuable services: organizing the review process for vetting scientific results and disseminating beautifully type-set expositions of new scientific research by the only means then available, the printed page, .

The scientific community can now disseminate beautifully type-set expositions of their own work thanks to LaTeX and the internet without the aid of any commercial enterprise, and, in fact, was always able to organize the review process without the help of commercial interests as the many fine journals published by scientific and scholarly societies attest.

It appears that Elsevier, Springer et al. now have a business model that is based on nothing other than the collection of monopoly rents for the prestige associated with the name of venerable scientific journals they bought up. It is hardly surprising that they are seeing state-support to prop up the foundation of sand on which their profits are based — from corruption of copyright law to support a \’licensing model\’, to corruption of the method of funding science by pushing funding agencies to use the self-serving bibliometric models that discount publications and citations in non-commercial publications — and oppose state action which moves toward the natural situation of ideas being shared freely without the intevention for rent-seeking gate-keepers.

Let the market do its work and kill off companies with unsustainable business models.

By: Emeritus Professor Ronald Brown

Emeritus Professor Ronald Brown — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 16:43:49 +0000

Writing as an Editor of three international mathematical journals, 2 of which are completely open access via the interent, I would suggest that the problems of Elsevier and their investors are analogous to the problems of candlemakeers at the introduction of gas lighting, of gas producers at the introduction of electric lighting, of ferry owners, when new bridges are built, and so on.

The quality of the journal is maintained by its Editorial Board, and the referees who work for free, as part of their academic job. The problem with the big publishers is that they give less and less, and expect more and more.

Ronald Brown http://www.bangor.ac.uk/r.brown

By: Alexander D. King

Alexander D. King — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 19:49:50 +0000

I call ‘bullshit’ on the sentence ‘As has already been shown through a bibliometric analysis of the quality of open access articles.’ I have never seen a bibliometric analysis that has a reliable measure of quality–good research well presented. Elsevier has been bilking libraries for millions for several years and they just went too far. Publishing costs are coming down, especially in academic publications, but their subscription prices shot up.