Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Saturday, May 06, 2006

Another answer to Pat Schroeder on FRPAA

Andre Brown, Open Access Update, BioCurious, May 5, 2006. Excerpt:

The Washington Post article on the bill [FRPAA] quotes Patricia S. Schroeder, president and chief executive of the Association of American Publishers:

It is frustrating that we can’t seem to get across to people how expensive it is to do the peer review, edit these articles and put them into a form everyone can understand

Schroeder is overstating her case. Publishing has costs, but she should not be so misleading. Finding peer reviewers might cost publishers money, but the process itself is provided free of charge by members of the scientific community. Also, what does she mean by putting articles “into a form that everyone can understand”? Do physicists not understand papers on the arXiv because they are missing the publisher’s input? Do non-experts understand papers published in Physical Review Letters because of the great formatting?