[cmath] Campaign against Elsevier

[Tomasz Kaczynski]

Dear Nassif, Dear colleagues,

I am sympathetic with voices of deception with current publishing  
practices but I don’t know why this attack is explicitly on Elsevier,  
while

1. The problem is general and it concerns all leading scientific  
publishers, with Elsevier ex aequo Springer. Please see this paper  
which appeared in The Guardian online half an year ago:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist

For example, in the blog one says about “bundles” of Elsevier: From  
2010 on, our library has been pushed to purchase a bundle of All  
Springer electronic books in Math, leaving not too much funds for  
books from other publishers. Another example, Elsevier charges $  
31.40/paper, Springer $34.95.

2. The article cited above presents objections which are more  
fundamental in nature than charging high prices: it is about  
monopolizing the knowledge acquired from public funds. But it occurred  
to me that actually Elsevier is the Publisher who’s  attitude to  
Author’s Rights e.g. concerning the free on-line distribution of  
author’s own preprints seems to be the most flexible, see this new  
reformed policy:

http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/rights

In the view of this policy, the author may not only keep a preprint on  
his web page (or in arxiv) but even update it by incorporating  
suggestions from referees (who also are paid from public funds, not by  
the Publisher) provided there is no involvement of the Publisher’s  
team in producing the preprint version. So, regardless of how much  
Elsevier charges for their final version, whether or not the public  
research is publically released, depends on US, THE AUTHORS, not only  
on the Publisher.

I do not find such transparent statements from other publishers, and I  
think that many authors feel intimidated by journals’ copyright  
policies. How many authors can afford purchasing the Open Access  
option? Those who do, are they the best authors or best-financed  
authors?  I see that many publications of scientific Societies and  
Consortiums such as IEEE or, why search so far, our CMS, are also a  
kind of “Sesame: show open” ;-)

To recapitulate this, I believe that a fundamental discussion on  
public research and authors rights versus publisher’s rights is due  
rather than blasting one selected publisher.

Best regards,
Tomasz

-- 
Tomasz Kaczynski
Departement de mathematiques
Universite de Sherbrooke
Sherbrooke, Qc, Canada


Quoting Nassif Ghoussoub <nassif at math.ubc.ca>:

> Dear all,
>
> This is to inform you about a campaign to boycott Elsevier launched  
> by Timothy Gowers on his blog
>
> http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-in-its-downfall/
>
> You can participate if you wish by going to the webpage "Cost of knowledge"
>
> http://thecostofknowledge.com/
>
>
> Nassif Ghoussoub
> http://nghoussoub.com/
>
>