[cmath] Re: Important issues concerning the research community

[Nassif Ghoussoub]

Dear all, 

My email was mainly for information. I haven't personally thought enough about the most appropriate strategy to fight the bad business practices 
in scientific publishing. Gowers' blog and its comments' section include a discussion on why Elsevier and not others.

In any case, my own priority now is on the following issue.  

http://nghoussoub.com/2012/01/27/it-may-be-crunch-time-for-the-presidents-of-canadas-research-councils/

Please keep this in mind since we --meaning all of Canada's researchers-- may need to speak up before it is too late.

Nassif


On Jan 27, 2012, at 12:03 PM, Volker Runde wrote:

> 
> 2012/1/27 Tomasz Kaczynski <t.kaczynski at usherbrooke.ca>
> 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/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Volker Runde - Professor
> Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences
> CAB 632
> University of Alberta
> Edmonton, Alberta
> Canada T6G 2G1
> 
> Phone: 780 492 3526
> Fax: 780 492 6826
>