Hi David Inouye,
Several times in recent years there have been lengthy threads on Ecolog
discussing the fact that many scientific publications are prohibitively
expensive for scholars working in poor countries or who are affiliated with
institutions with very limited resources. This seems to have devolved into
a situation where science exists to serve the wealthy, where tropical
countries serve as field stations for ecologists, but are excluded from
participating in research and benefiting from the research of their own
lands.
Do you know if the Governing Board took this into account when
considering a publishing partner? Who will control the pricing and
availability of the journals? Will there be a policy guaranteeing, or at
least facilitating, access for worthy scholars, irrespective of their
financial means?
Martin
2015-03-28 12:30 GMT-04:00 David S Schimel <[email protected]>:
> and in Ecological Applications, the January issue.
>
> Dave Schimel
>
>
> On Mar 28, 2015, at 10:05 AM, David Inouye <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > The Ecological Society of America, which has self-published its journals
> for about a century, is facing this kind of issue Martin raises below. Most
> of the societies that publish journals read by ecologists have already
> moved to partner with some of the large publishers (Wiley, Elsevier, Oxford
> University Press, Taylor and Francis, etc.), and it is likely that the ESA
> will do the same within the next year. For more information about the
> reasons behind this, see this month's editorial in Frontiers in Ecology and
> the Environment:
> http://www.esajournals.org/doi/full/10.1890/1540-9295-13.2.67.
> >
> > David Inouye
> >
> >
> > At 10:42 AM 3/28/2015, you wrote:
> >
> >> What ever happened to the scholarly journal being a pet sideline of a
> >> working professor, struggling by on subscription fees and small
> allotments
> >> from the university's research foundation, with high-level graduate
> >> students doing some of the editorial work as part of a stipend deal?
> >> Perhaps not the best of all possible governance models, but it seems to
> me
> >> like a better recipe for scientific integrity than being a
> profit-center of
> >> a corporate machine.
> >>
> >> Your thoughts, please...
> >>
> >> Martin M. Meiss
> >
> > Dr. David W. Inouye, Professor Emeritus
> > Department of Biology
> > University of Maryland
> > College Park, MD 20742-4415
> >
> > 2014-15: President, Ecological Society of America
> >
> > Principal Investigator
> > Rocky Mtn. Biological Laboratory
> > PO Box 519
> > Crested Butte, CO 81224
> >
> > [email protected]
> > 301-405-6946
>
