RE: Q 1. on OA

["Mcsean, Tony (ELS)" <T.Mcsean@elsevier.com>]

I'd like to support Joe by quoting George Bernard Shaw's dictum 
that professions are either a group of people gathered together 
in the name of progress or a conspiracy against society.  In my 
personal experience medical and LIS professional associations are 
mostly a sticky mixture of both.  The British Medical Association 
is fiercely committed to the principle of sustaining 
self-regulation within the medical profession and worked 
tirelessly to support this in the wake of the major scandals of 
the Shipman serial killings and the scandal of the Bristol Royal 
Infirmary's paediatric cardiac unit.  As a registered trade union 
the BMA is perfectly entitled to defend what it's members see as 
their own best interests, and indeed many people for whom I have 
great respect hold that self-regulation is best because the 
regulators understand fully the issues.

Every professional association I have been inside has regarded 
political lobbying (in the broad and narrow sense) as an 
important part of its core activity.  It is often (?always) 
regarded as doubly important because its "public good" elements 
will give members a warm feeling about how their subs are being 
spent, and it will reinforce the organisations moral strength 
when what the BMA tends to call pay and rations issues come under 
discussion. Certainly in my time as director, the BMA's sizeable 
library service came into this category.

Professional membership organisations are by their nature 
complex, hydra-headed entities.  They are a mixture of 
self-interest, members' interest and public interest and the 
balance will shift (sometimes spectacularly) over time.  UK 
medical colleges typically lean heavily on income from publishing 
and examination fees in order to accomplish what the members see 
as their essential profesional role, and the UK's national LIS 
association, (CILIP, whose council I currently chair) covers only 
one third of its annual expenditure from members' subscriptions.

To conclude, like Joe I recognise that societies are free to do 
anything that the law, their charter and their finances allow. 
But also like Joe, I would counsel everyone to bear in mind that 
not all their activities and goals are entirely selfless.

Tony

Tony McSean
Director of Library Relations
Elsevier
84 Theobald's Road
London WC1X 8RR

+44 7795 960516
+44 20 76114413

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph Esposito
Sent: 21 June 2006 00:15
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Q 1. on OA

Peter:

I am not going to focus on the word "typically," which covers a 
multitude of sins, but I think you are on shakey ground here.

Dollars are fungible; what comes in from publishing can be spent 
on lobbying for (or against) Medicare benefits, environmental 
regulations, and so forth. Professional societies have their 
interests, as they should, and they are not neccessarily of the 
"for the greater good" variety. I am personally not troubled by 
this at all, nor do I think getting all the facts out, warts and 
all, undermines your very strong argument.  Professional 
societies have a right to charge for their publications and use 
that money in any lawful way they see fit.  That does not mean 
that everyone would continue to purchase the publications if the 
various ways the revenue got redistributed and spent were 
disclosed.  If the academy can impose embargoes on Israel and the 
Sudan, why not a professional society or two?  Indeed, I am truly 
amazed that the OA advocates have not pursued this route already.

Joe Esposito

On 6/19/06, Peter Banks <pbanks@bankspub.com> wrote:
>
> The advocacy in which associations engage is not typically of 
> the "Abramoff" variety. It is usually for causes that do 
> benefit science and medicine--for example, increasing the 
> budget of NIH, expanding health coverage from Americans, or 
> supporting stem cell research.
>
> On 6/19/06 7:43 PM, "Joseph Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In fairness one should add at least one item to Peter's list of
>> investments on the part of professional societies:  political
>> lobbying.  Few do this, but it is not something that can comfortably
>> be covered by the phrase "other activities that benefit science and
>> medicine."
>>
>> Joe Esposito