Open Access News

Here's a new set of blogger comments on the AAP's new PR campaign against OA.  (This is the third set; also see the first and second.)

From Amy Gahran at PoynterOnline:

...Personally, I can understand the journal publishers wanting to protect their business. However, I think it's futile as well as harmful to block open access to scientific information. Science journals do add value to raw scientific information via peer review, fostering high-quality debate and analysis, and other processes. I think if they can focus on those value-adds, they can preserve and even enhance their business -- without locking down access to scientific information....

From Eve Gray at Gray Area:

...I remain open-mouthed. At least, I suppose, it means that open access is serious enough for the publishers to see it as a threat and that is a good thing. However, for scholarly publishers to be caught out in such an expedient exercise of truth-bending is another matter - all the more so in the intellectual environment in which they operate. I am particularly surprised at Wiley, which in my dealings with it in the past has emerged as a company with a concern for quality and the ability to think out of the box - to an extent unusual among their peers. So to see them descend to tactics such as this is disappointing. I would have thought that a company like Wiley should have the nerve and the intelligence to ride the wave, to learn where scholarly publishing is heading and position themselves ahead of the game....'Would you buy a used car from someone like this?' Are these to be the guardians of the quality of your scholarship?

From Joe at Back of the Envelope:

Doesn't surprise me - this industry has descended into blatant rent-seeking behaviour over the last couple decades. It's gotten to the point in my field (heterogeneous catalysis) that all (pretty much) the journals dedicated to the subject are owned by Elsevier. No prizes for guessing what happens when you own all the journals....Add in these ridiculous 'impact factor' calculations and you have the makings of a ludicrous Kafkaesque like rabbit warren of being seen to publish in journals not because it's good work but because the journals themselves define good work. Madness! ...

From Kambiz Kamrani on Anthropology.net:

...This is pretty pitiful, it is actually despicable for publishers to be doing that. Peer-review can still flourish, if not be more critical and constructed under an open access model. More people can read it, more people can comment on it, more people can know about! [Publishers] have lost focus of what they are in the business of, to document and disseminate knowledge. Not keep it locked away! ...

From Heather Morrison at OA Librarian:

...Equating public access with government censorship is absurd...[as is equating conventional publishing with peer review]. The Directory of Open Access Journals currently lists over 2,500 fully open access, peer-reviewed journals, and the numbers are growing rapidly....

From Alex Palazzo at The Daily Transcript:

...And do they think that they can get away with this misinformation? Scientists, the most active participants in this debate, understand the issues ... but we also need to ensure that our elected officials understand the situation as well....

From Revere at Effect Measure:

...What is so galling about this is the intellectual dishonesty from publishers whose whole business depends on intellectual honesty. They are also willing to get in bed with some of the fiercest enemies of science....If I thought the American Chemical Society and their cronies Wiley and Elsevier had any shame I'd say, "Shame on you." As it is, the best I can do is, "Go screw yourself" (instead of screwing the rest of us).

From Rex at  Savage Minds:

...Big Content has begun using scare tactics to convince academics that the free dissemination of ideas —the central ideal of our profession— is unethical.  The article in Nature article reports that the American Association of Publishers has hired powerful PR consultant Eric Dezenhall —the ‘pit bull’ of the PR industry— to develop a PR campaign that will convince people that scarcity is good and plenty is bad. How could you possibly convince people of this? ...The solution, according to Dezenhall, is to claim that “public access equals government censorship” and to argue that peer review will collapse if the pay-for-content journal industry collapses. The second assertion —that I will suddenly be unwilling to provide free labor to journals to review the work of my colleagues if it is made free and open— is so incoherent that there is no real way to respond to it....I currently provide peer review for several journals, including the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute...and none of them pay me a red cent. Is Big Content seriously arguing that I would be less likely to provide peer review for JRAI if they gave me a free subscription (in the form of open access to their content)? ...

From Olive Ridley at The Olive Ridley Crawl:

...Yes, go ahead, use the same publicist types that brought you the “CO2 is life” campaign. If you read the [Scientific American] article fully, you’ll see that these publicists suggest a simple message....Yes, of course, open access journals are not peer reviewed, cigarettes are not addictive, CO2 is life, 1+1=3 (just checking!)  I am ashamed to call myself a member of the egregious American Chemical Society, which is part of this lobbying effort along with Elsevier and Wiley....