I agree about the excessive charges for some open access journals. Because something is open access does not make it green... or the good green. It is possible for greedy publishers to make unhealthy/unfair profits on open access by charging much more than the cost of publication in page fees. I am not against professionalization of open access. There is no reason for scientists or others to work for free. Indentured servitude is still servitude, even under an open access banner. Many US faculty are nominally paid for 20% service. If editorial work counts for them they are being paid by their institutions. So, it is a good point that there are excessive fees in some cases. I do not see who but the societies can step forward and present alternative fees based on the true costs of publishing. Even for the non-profit societies however publishing is a source of funds to run their other operations. The can undercut the costs of the for-profits and still make a profit themselves to spend in house. It is up to the members of the societies to make sure the costs are not excessive. University presses might be an option but many of them have become profit centers because they can do well under the high margins of the for-profits. Many of them have gone under however as well.
It is good also to consider what we are getting for the page fees. Do we have guarantees of perpetual access through JSTOR for example? Are we getting DOIs for reference? Good indexing services? Performance tracking for citations and circulation? You want the publications to still be available 50 years from now... well some articles are better off disappearing but that is another issue. Some of this is becoming very cheap in the digital world but in evaluating the quality of a journal these technical issues need to be considered. What is a poor graduate student (or full professor) to do when considering where to publish their findings. Most do not know this stuff so they just going the the highest impact factor journal they can find. Might be better for us all to learn a little more about the publishing industry that we reply on to disseminate knowledge and make more informed decisions. Congratulations on your good work for bringing an alternative journal online. I am not sure all volunteer is the only way to go but it is certainly nobel. On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 9:27 AM, malcolm McCallum < [email protected]> wrote: > Having run an open access herpetology journal for 6 years that has no > page charges, no upload fees, is run entirely by volunteers, and is > rapidly rising in stature with coverage by Journal Citation Reports > and having many articles been widely covered by the media, I find the > excessive fees asinine. Yes, I SAID EXCESSIVE. There is no reason any > publisher need charge thousands of dollars to process a paper, period. > This is nothing but greed to soak the investigator for as much as > they can get. > > I seriously advise all societies to consider taking back control of > their online journals from mass publishers and do it themselves. IF > you are running a website, running a journal is no more difficult. > Make the page formatting simple, and there is essentially NO reason to > pay out ridiculous fees for online publishers. Further, placing your > articles in online pay databases is an equally unneeded way to do > things. Just make pdfs of every article and place them on your > website open access. You can even program your webpage to accept fees > for download and make them REASONABLE download fees. > The organization will make a huge profit by doing this. > > Malcolm > > > On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 8:20 AM, Bryan <[email protected]> wrote: > > As has been pointed out here and other places, the page fees for open > access > > journals is a barrier for many researchers. It is however in the > long-term > > economic best interest of home institutions for some of these researchers > to > > foot this bill since it reduces costs overall. That is a difficult sell > as > > well since these libraries are cutting staff as well as book orders. > Paying > > page costs this year will not reduce the costs of subscriptions for a > long > > time. As long as researchers publish in and read the expensive journals > the > > libraries will be pressured to subscribe to those journals. > > > > Bryan Heidorn, School of Information Resources and Library Science, > > University of Arizona > > > > > > -- > Malcolm L. McCallum > Oceania University of Medicine > Managing Editor, > Herpetological Conservation and Biology > > "Peer pressure is designed to contain anyone with a sense of drive" - > Allan Nation > > 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S. Gilbert > 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, > and pollution. > 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction > MAY help restore populations. > 2022: Soylent Green is People! > > The Seven Blunders of the World (Mohandas Gandhi) > Wealth w/o work > Pleasure w/o conscience > Knowledge w/o character > Commerce w/o morality > Science w/o humanity > Worship w/o sacrifice > Politics w/o principle > > Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any > attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may > contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized > review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not > the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and > destroy all copies of the original message. > -- Bryan Heidorn University of Arizona http://www.sirls.arizona.edu/heidorn
