Re: NFP publishing

["Peter Banks" <pbanks@diabetes.org>]

Taxation without representation?

A subscription is not a tax; it a choice to purchase information. 
You might as well make the argument that buying any Kraft product 
is a tax that forces you to support Philip Morris and, by 
extension, cigarette smoking. You have a choice: don't buy 
anything that's part of the Phillip Morris empire, and don't buy 
Diabetes if you feel that the ADA empire is guilty of something 
(like suppressing what you might see as the truth of low-carb 
dieting). Start your own journal of Low-Carbohydrate Science if 
you wish and if OA is as easy as you believe; no one is forcing 
you to buy Diabetes.

As for the contention that non-profit publishers should not 
support other operations with any net income from publishing, to 
do as you say would be a gross disservice to the public and the 
clinicians and scientists we serve. Any money gained from 
publishing goes into to things that support science: grants, 
seminars, practice standards, education for young scientists, and 
many other things. OA would mean a loss of subscription, 
advertising, sponsorship, and reprint sales--and a loss of all 
the things that NFPs do to support science. It is really time to 
stop thinking naively about scientific publishing a vacuum--it is 
one, but only one, way to support science and research. We out to 
be looking at what NFPs put into education and information as a 
whole, and the benefits in total that come from that investment.

I am frankly sick of the attacks on the segment of publishing 
that supports free access to scientific information in a 
sustainable, proven, and responsible way--non-profit publishing. 
In any case, it's all an academic argument, because as a model of 
publishing, OA is dead on arrival for most nonprofits.

Peter Banks
Publisher
American Diabetes Association
1701 North Beauregard Street
Alexandria, VA 22311
703/299-2033
FAX 703/683-2890
Email: pbanks@diabetes.org