A scientific publishing conference taking place this week couldn't come at a better time as the scientific information community teeters on the brink of all out war. At no time before has the open access publishing debate been so truculent. The decision to hire a PR attack dog has not been welcomed.
Scientific Publishing in the European Research Area kicks off on Thursday 15 February in Brussels. All the key players from publishing and the open access movement are in attendance, including Nick Fowlers, Director of Strategy for publishing giants Elsevier, Robert Kiley, Head of E-Strategy at the Wellcome Trust, the funding body that is very pro-Open Access, Blackwell boss Bob Campbell and Ian Russell, the CEO of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP).
Discussions will include challenges and opportunities facing scientific publishing, new opportunities for the research community, business models and policy options.
Jan Velterop, open access champion at major STM publisher Springer is attending, but is worried that the scientific information is being divided into distinct camps and on a collision course towards war. "I hope this conference can be constructive," he said, "Sadly there is not enough desire by either side to actually get together and solve the problems of scientific information, which is a pity."
Some believe the conference will focus on the news in recent weeks that the Association of American Publishers (AAP) along with its members Elsevier and John Wiley & Sons has hired a notorious PR attack expert to rubbish the claims of open access supporters. "It is not very helpful, it is drawing this into a battle, when a constructive dialog would be better for everyone," Velterop said.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/12/2007 01:34:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
