David,
I'm glad to hear that. It seems to me that tropical countries are
much more likely to address environmental and ecological issues if the
knowledge and recommendations to do so come from their own scientists, and
favorable access policies from ESA and other organizations can only help.
Thanks for responding.
Martin M. Meiss
2015-03-29 22:52 GMT-04:00 David Inouye <[email protected]>:
> Martin - the ESA offers ecologists from developing countries a special
> membership rate, and I believe that there is also a reduced price for
> journal subscriptions from those countries. We'll keep your points below in
> mind as we're negotiating with potential future publishing partners.
> Pricing and access are among the issues we will discuss with them.
>
> David Inouye
>
>
> 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
> > >
>
