Re: SV: paleonet The threat of the Publishing Crises to Paleontology and to the Commercial Publishers themselves

["Jere H. Lipps" <jlipps@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

You know, all of this is just beginning.  There are problems and there will be people who for one reason or another just can't make a change.  Clearly if all the paleontologists in the world stopped submitting to commercial journals, it would not make any difference at all to the commercials.  But we are not alone.  The entire scientific community is in an uproar about it and change is happening.  We can help, or we can just continue as we are and take whatever comes along.  You can knock e-journals for not being good, for having senior people publishing their junk there, or whatever.   And if your societies cannot take the overflow, then I guess you will just have to go with the commercial journals, but a lot of other workers will not be able to read your work because they will not have library or net access to them.   If the University of California System is stopping subscriptions because they can't pay for everything at the high prices, then I'd guess that almost every other institution in the world is in the same or much worse boat!    The UC System is surely at or near the top on the list of payments for subscriptions to journals.  What is happening in single-campus institutions or museums?  Possibly, people publishing in high cost journals are already not being read as much.  We can rethink it all again later, I suppose.   Or we can try now to improve the whole system as it works for paleontology.  We need to have a dialog with the commercial publishers too, maybe led by our societies.

I would hate to think that my access to journals was controlled by the stroke of a pen wielded by Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger or a librarian going over Excel sheets on journal costs.  But that, in fact, is exactly what is happening.

At 11:34 PM 4/14/2005, you wrote:

 -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk [mailto:paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk] Pĺ vegne af Breandán MacGabhann
Sendt: 15. april 2005 01:16
Til: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
Emne: RE: paleonet The threat of the Publishing Crises to Paleontology and to the Commercial Publishers themselves

A second point. It's all very well for us to say "yeah it's a good idea to publish in society journals only". Individually it will make very little difference. I think we need to be organised to do that properly. If even half the people on paleonet sign a statement refusing to publish in commercial journals, and going for society and online journals instead, it might just make a difference.

You're probably right, but if all of a sudden we all submit all our manuscript to society journals, will they be able to take it? How long will we have to wait before the publication of our work?
All the best,
Gilles.

Dr. Gilles Cuny
Geological Museum
Řster Voldgade 5-7
1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark
Tel: (+45) 3532 2364, fax: (+45) 3532 2325
Please note new e-mail address: gilles@snm.ku.dk


Finally, a response to Mark Purnell. I appreciate the comments, and I take on board what you say. But are the papers submitted by these high profile authors of the same quality that they would submit elsewhere? Or are they merely, to put it bluntly, giving PE the scraps from the kitchen table? [this is not my opinion, i'm trying to open the discussion more] With regard to ISI accreditation, it's not that in itself that worries me, it's peoples attitude to the journal in question. Basically, if I think submitting a paper to a particular journal would lead to that paper being ignored on my CV by the important people when I come to apply for a postdoc or a job, I won't submit the paper there. I'd have no problem publishing in a Special Publication of the Geological Society, for example, which doesn't have an ISI impact factor, but is well regarded (as far as I know!). I very much support PE, Carnets etc, I think that is the right direction, but I don't think they've gained widespread acceptance yet. I hope they do.


Regards,

Breandán MacGabhann
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