Elsevier

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/20/elsevier_academic_strike_grows/

Dutch publishing house Elsevier is facing increasing pressure from the scientific community, with the company's 2,000 journals now being blacklisted by over 8,600 academics.

In January, following an angry blog post by British mathematician Tom Gowers, academics started to sign a public petition refusing to submit, edit, or approve articles for publication in Elsevier's extensive stable of titles, which includes The Lancet and Cell.

The petition protested against the high prices Elsevier charges for its journals, its practice of requiring subscribers to buy bundles of publications rather than individual subscriptions, and the company's support for the Research Works Act (RWA) in the US Congress, which would close access to publicly-funded research.

The movement quickly caught on with academics, and within days over a thousand of them had signed up. Elsevier relies on academics to submit papers for publications, as well as others to proof, edit and peer-review research, so the strike struck at the heart of the publisher's business model.

http://thecostofknowledge.com/

still don't know if this is a storm in a teacup, but I do feel that research, especially when publicly funded should be freely available. Is there even a need for a publishing house that diverts several billion of research funding every year ?

By publicly funded I'd include any results used in advertising , or sectors like health where almost all funding comes directly or indirectly from the public / government.

opinion guy

Thanks for posting this - was unaware of all this

djpbarry

I was also completely unaware. I don't know if it's feasible to have research freely available, but making it available on a not-for-profit basis might be a more practical solution. I don't mind paying a small fee to access a paper so that the publisher can cover costs and/or maintain standards, but I hate when I have to restrict myself in how I present something because having a colour figure will cost me several hundred dollars.

Ostrom

djpbarry wrote: »

I was also completely unaware. I don't know if it's feasible to have research freely available, but making it available on a not-for-profit basis might be a more practical solution. I don't mind paying a small fee to access a paper so that the publisher can cover costs and/or maintain standards, but I hate when I have to restrict myself in how I present something because having a colour figure will cost me several hundred dollars.

In my experience, the fees are usually substantial. Sage typically quote a unit price of $40 for articles falling beyond university subscriptions. I expect such expenses to be absorbed by my registration fees, but the costs for institutional subscriptions run into many thousands (and were recently hiked up) - which doesn't bode well for future public access and disclosure.

djpbarry

efla wrote: »

In my experience, the fees are usually substantial. Sage typically quote a unit price of $40 for articles falling beyond university subscriptions.

I guess it varies from publisher to publisher. For example, I have access to quite a few IEEE journals included in my annual subscription (just under $200 for this year). I'll easily access 100 articles over the course of a year, so it works out pretty cheap. Anything my subscription doesn't cover is usually $10 - 12. But then, IEEE is a non-profit organisation!

opinion guy

Yeah I often find when something isn't covered by subscription its anything from $35-$70 to get a downloadable copy - which is absolutely taking the piss. I can't believe at those price they would actually sell any. I think once I paid top dollar as I was stuck to get something in a hurry.

But there are several other options of course:
a) email the author for a reprint
b) interlibrary loan (usually about 5-10eur per paper)
c) email a buddy at a different university that might have access

djpbarry

opinion guy wrote: »

email the author for a reprint

Yep, definitely the best option in most cases and authors are happy enough to oblige almost all of the time.