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In general I think its worth to discuss any possibility.
However, I see various problems:
1) To my knowledge, medical researches often get paid, not by the journals
perhaps. There are economic interests behind, worth billions of dollars. So
there is already a disequilibrium depending on the research field with more
or less financial back-up. In our disciplines it's the other way round:
Commercial journals often publish without page charge while institutional
journals often ask us to pay (at least for longer papers, 8-10 printed pages
up, which appears to have become a standard).
2) Within our disciplines there is a disequilibrium in scientific interest,
also by the public. Papers from colleagues working on dinosaurs, flight
evolution (as we can see in this list), anthropological (hominoid evolution)
issues, or genetics get a much wider distribution than 'boring' papers on
taxonomy.
If we try to press the professional journals, they will probably
cherry-picking the papers and many of us won't be able to publish there.
Cheers,
Niko
> What about a more equitable model of compensation to control market
> forces?
> Scientists get paid to publish in the popular science world. Why not by
> professional journals? Prestige and career advancement are not enough of
> a
> reward. Do you see novelists paying publishers and Broadway stars paying
> producers? Scientists already do the most critical work for the
> commercial
> journals, the research, writing, and reviews. Perhaps universities could
> bargain with commercials, insisting on compensation for contributions by
> faculty, a price break, or no-deal.
>
> Is there some reason the scientific community wants to keep personal
> financial reward out of the professional publication realm? Would it be
> corrupting?
>
> - SY
>
> Sylvia Hope
>
> Ornithology & Mammalogy
>
> California Academy of Sciences
>
> 875 Howard St.
>
> San Francisco, CA 94103
>
> (415) 321-8379
>
> shope@calacademy.org
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk [mailto:paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk] On Behalf
> Of
> Jere H. Lipps
> Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 11:41 PM
> To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk; paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
> Subject: paleonet The threat of the Publishing Crises to Paleontology and
> to
> the Commercial Publishers themselves
>
>
>
> Thanks to those who thanked me for bringing this matter together. I
> didn't
> do it, however. It came from the University of California, whose bill to
> the
> commercial publishers is in the millions of dollars/year and is causing
> the
> cutting of many books and other journals. We have to fight to keep paleo,
> some geology and systematic journals. I have noticed that if I fail to
> respond in a couple of days to the email list sent to me by the librarians
> (like all I have to do is read a thousand emails and delete another 2-3
> thousand spam-mails), they will cancel the journals for lack of input.
> Trying to get journals restored is almost more trouble than it is worth.
>
> I see benefits from commercial publication of our journals--they do a nice
> job, they do whatever it takes to get the science out, they do it without
> additional costs to societies, they do it without additional burden on
> scientists who should have better things to do than run journals, and they
> do
> it on-line and, I am sure, will soon be posting papers on-line as soon as
> they are reviewed favorably. We pay profits on everything else we use in
> our
> work from Brunton compasses and rock picks to our vehicles, computers and
> storage cabinets without complaints. The difference is that no matter
> what
> those benefits may be or whether or not you agree with me that they are
> indeed benefits, the commercial publishers are killing us off. They will
> also soon be killing themselves off. So, I should think that they would
> want to compromise on this deal somehow. After all, if our libraries, to
> say
> nothing of Ministers of Education, MP's, the NIH, and a whole host of
> universities and libraries are rebelling against them, then they will lose
> too. No one else will buy their stuff!
>
> The commercial publishers should work more favorably with us. Scientists
> will not go down in this battle, the commercial publishers will. Science
> is
> too valuable to society and we (or our funders) can merely change our
> publishing habits. The commercials cannot do a thing without us. So they
> better help with this crises and not fight it, as they are making many
> enemies at levels higher than working scientists. NIH, as you now know,
> has
> moved to take publication out of the hands of scientists to avoid the
> commercialization of the work they fund. If we were dealing with soft
> drinks, you bet that the different purveyors would be far more competitive
> and be offering us good deals. The commercials should do the same for
> publication, electronic dispersal of our work, and the cheapest prices to
> our
> libraries. But there is no competition. YET. Each publisher invents a new
> journal or two in each field and everyone wants it, for fear of missing
> out.
> Of course the commercials offer us editorships and board memberships, and
> our
> deprived egos can't pass on these little tid-bits and we accept (I can
> substitute I for we in the previous sentence). Stop it. We must make
> change happen, if they continue to ignore us. In the end, fewer and
> cheaper
> commercial journals might still provide a useful service in many parts of
> science, but the continued increasing costs will not be tolerated by the
> community at large. So they better change somehow. We could help them
> do
> that.
>
> I'd love to hear from them.
>
> All of this is a complex issue involving economics, stockholders, job
> holders, decreased purchasing power, decreasing budgets, and uninformed
> scientists. Enough people are outraged that something will happen.
> Should
> be interesting.
>
> Jere
>
>
--
---
ADDRESS: Dept. de Geologia/Unitat Paleontologia, Universitat Autònoma de
Barcelona, Campus,
Edifici Cs, 08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès), Catalunya, SPAIN
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