Re: NFP publishing

[Richard Feinman <RFeinman@downstate.edu>]

Isn't NFP society publishers somewhat misleading?  This has been 
said before, but the key thing is NFP operations.  My impression 
is that publishing by NFP organizations brings in money for the 
organization. This is a kind of taxation without representation. 
By subscribing to a journal which might be very good, Diabetes 
journals for example, I am forced to support an organization, 
ADA, that I might otherwise not support. Societies should support 
publishing not the other way around.  Their NFP status might make 
it easier for them to get grant support and the cost would 
obviously be lower if they were OA.  So I think they are part of 
the conspiracy with the commercial houses; conspiracy in the 
etymologic sense, breathing together.  Many of the NFP societies 
have prestige journals and could lead the way in diverting the 
money that goes into toll access into OA.  This makes sense, 
right?

Richard D. Feinman, Professor of Biochemistry


"Joseph Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>
Sent by: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
04/17/06 07:57 PM
Subject Re: Dramatic Growth of Open Access

The number of open access journals is growing--true.  The number 
of proprietary journals (aka "toll-access journals") is also 
growing.  The number of OA articles in primarily proprietary 
journals is growing.  And the number of unauthorized articles 
from proprietary journals that are available on the public Web 
("leakage") is growing.  I suspect the growth rate for this last 
category (leakage) is the fastest-growing of all, but that is a 
speculation.  Growth, growth, growth, growth:  why is everybody 
saying this is a zero-sum game?

Meanwhile, I happened to read that the CEO of Reed Elsevier 
(which publishes much more than science journals, of course) was 
awarded a bonus of around $3 million dollars this year.  Sales 
are strong, profit is up.  OA hasn't much touched the big guys. 
It's the little guys who can get hurt, the not-for-profit society 
publishers, many of whom live hand to mouth, in part because of 
their less restrictive access policies, in part because of their 
less aggressive pricing.  Are there any conspiracty theorists on 
this list who wonder if OA is a plot by the commercial houses to 
put their NFP competition out of business?

Joe Esposito