[GOAL] Re: Hitler, Mother Teresa, and Coke

[Leslie Carr]

Publishers are capitalists - I don't think they'd argue the point.

The hostage metaphor really works for me and for many of my colleagues, as it involves elements of ENFORCED TAKING and subsequent DEPRIVATION tied to conditions of RANSOM.

Eric's piece makes the really interesting and helpful point
There are no Hitlers. There are no Mothers Teresa. There are just individuals and organizations looking out for their self-interest in a market complicated by historical baggage

He's certainly right about Hitler, but only he made the comparison in the first place. (A search for Hitler and "open access" reveals a rather funny Downfall video about Hitler's attitude to peer review, but it's not really what Eric was concerned about.)

He's absolutely on the nose about self-interested individuals and organisations, and this is rather the point of open access! The research publishing industry's self-interest need not be such an enormous problem to the self-interest of the research industry. Thanks to the Web, the research industry can regain a better balance in the scholarly ecosystem.

Les Carr

On 6 Nov 2012, at 04:32, "Eric F. Van de Velde" <eric.f.vandevelde at gmail.com<mailto:eric.f.vandevelde at gmail.com>> wrote:

Publishers are manipulative capitalists who extort academia by holding hostage the research papers they stole from helpless scholars on a mission to save the world. This Hitler vs. Mother Teresa narrative is widespread in academic circles. Some versions are nearly as shrill as this one. Others are toned-down and carry scholarly authority. All versions are just plain wrong.

To see how this ends, go to
http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com/2012/11/hitler-mother-teresa-and-coke.html

Comments welcome.
--Eric.

http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com

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