On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 7:32 PM, Dana Roth <[email protected]> wrote:
One would hope that knowledgeable contributors would please refrain
from criticizing  âpublishersâ as a group ... as though there were
no differences in their policies towards academics. Â
Â
The stark contrast between the  policies of the American Physical
Society, for example, and many commercial publishers is so
transparently obvious that I need say no more.
I agree that there are a few publishers who do not fit into the broad category
I have suggested. This is true of all industries. There are companies in the
pharmaceutical industry that do not deserve the criticism that many have for the
major companies. But if we have to write "the pharmaceutical industry excepting
A, B, C" or "except those that don't do X" discourse becomes impossible. It's a
crude generalisation and polarizes debate but it is necessary for those who feel
the whole system is completely flawed.
The RWA action was taken through the Association of American Publishers and
these account for a very significant volume of published scholarly articles.
Actions are taken which are broadly seen as coming from the industry rather than
individual members. This has come up before with PRISM where publishers
collaborated to discredit the Open Access movement. . There is then public
criticism and a few members distance themselves, the fuss dies down and the
publishers remain with the association. This has also happened with RWA. Members
of the association are judged by the actions of their communal organization.
There is no sign that the publishing industry per se - apart perhaps from PLoS
and a very few other small publishers is actively trying to change the current
model - most of the others use traditional subscription models and are bound
into the practice of the dominant model.
--
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
[ Part 2: "Attached Text" ]
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