Dear Ecologers, A lab mate sent me a link to a newspaper article that I feel deserves further discussion. In Brad Boyle's own words, it is 'a provocative and important article in The Guardian on the racket of academic publishing': http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers- murdoch-socialist. Also, see the original blog by George Monbiot: http://www.monbiot.com/2011/08/29/the-lairds-of-learning/ for more discussion on the topic.
Are we really all being ripped off, or is this just another paranoia? If academic publishers are indeed parasites, how do we break the vicious cycle given that we do build our careers on publishing in high-end journals? Can open access journals ever become 'high-end'? Julie Messier -- PhD Candidate, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Arizona
