I am involved in leading a discussion at Georgia Tech about whether an institutional open access policy would be appropriate. The wikipedia page on OA is quite good:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access Ellen On Oct 26, 2011, at 6:19 AM, Carlos Becker Westphall wrote: > FYI. > > http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/10/25/DPLA-initiative-nearly-operational/ > > Digital Library Nearly Online > > By GAUTAM S. KUMAR and JULIA L. RYAN, CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS > Published: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 > > The Digital Public Library of America, an initiative spearheaded by > Harvard faculty members, is making fast progress toward developing a fully > operational online database of existing digitized works by April 2013... > > On Tue, 25 Oct 2011, Jakob Eriksson wrote: > >> >> On Oct 25, 2011, at 12:45 PM, Joe Touch wrote: >> >>> IMO, the venue is impacted much more by the quality of the papers submitted >>> than by the quality of the reviews. >>> >>> This is why, e.g., conferences in nice, warm places in the wintertime >>> become quite competitive for good papers. >>> >>> I.e., I don't debate your logic on this point, except that it's at least >>> equally important to boycott submissions too -- the pledge doesn't make a >>> statement about that, though. >> >> This point was discussed here earlier. The choice not to mention submissions >> is discussed on their "about" page, and I would say the argument is well >> founded. >> >>>> A colleague of mine chimed in with these statistics today: "Elsevier >>>> (publishing, not the Reed Elsevier parent company) received 2 billion >>>> EUR in revenue in 2010 and kept approximately 36% of that as profit." >>>> >>>> What exactly is it that Elsevier does (not their volunteering >>>> reviewers and authors), that justifies $2B/year of funding, and 720 >>>> million in annual profits? >>> >>> A lot of publishers - and authors - make money selling books. Journals are >>> often loss-leaders. That's what I've heard. I appreciate that I don't have >>> inside info on this, but absent that info you're tarring an entire industry >>> inappropriately. >> >> I didn't want to make the message too long. However, the same colleague >> provided the following numbers: >> >> "An Elsevier statement from 2007 says that Elsevier's 'Science and >> Technology' division contributed 51% of 'total Elsevier revenue' and >> that 77% of this 51% was from journals. An Elsevier statement in July >> 2009 said that "electronic revenue" from academics and governments "has >> grown to approximately 90% of Elsevier's total journal revenue.' " >> >> Assuming these numbers are correct, which I have every reason to believe, >> Elsevier journals are much closer to "cash cow" than "loss leader". :-) Here >> are some numbers on how much my university library pays for our various >> subscriptions: >> >> Elsevier: $1,235,800 >> Springer: ~$700,000 (estimated) >> IEEE: $93,497.50 >> ACM: $4,579.86 >> >> I'm sure this is a bit skewed by our ginormous medical school, but some of >> those numbers are pretty scary. For the record, I'm not sure about the >> accuracy of the ACM number, it may not include the Digital Library (since it >> looks rather affordable). >> >>> I'll note that you yourself published a number of papers in IEEE venues - >>> and the IEEE charges for access. >> >> Yes, in the past I have signed away my rights to much of my written work. It >> is not something I am proud of, but it is something I would like to try >> putting a stop to, without destroying my career in the meantime. >> >>> Is there some reason that's not legitimate? Is this about charging for >>> access to research, or for overcharging? >> >> >> To me, it is not about the price, it is about ownership. I want to retain >> ownership of the documents that I created. At the very least, I should have >> an absolute right to publish them for free, unrestricted download directly >> from my webpage. >> >> I could live with restrictions on for-profit re-publication, which would >> probably be enough to support the day-to-day operations of publishers. >> >> Jakob Eriksson >> Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago >> phone: (312)77-JAKOB >> 851 S Morgan (M/C 152), Room 1120 SEO, Chicago, IL 60607-7053 >> _______________________________________________ >> IEEE Communications Society Tech. Committee on Computer Communications >> (TCCC) - for discussions on computer networking and communication. >> [email protected] >> https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/cucslists/listinfo/tccc >> > _______________________________________________ > IEEE Communications Society Tech. Committee on Computer Communications > (TCCC) - for discussions on computer networking and communication. > [email protected] > https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/cucslists/listinfo/tccc _______________________________________________ IEEE Communications Society Tech. Committee on Computer Communications (TCCC) - for discussions on computer networking and communication. [email protected] https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/cucslists/listinfo/tccc
