[GOAL] Re: Whose business is it anyhow?

[DeDe Dawson]

Stevan,

Please don't forget that librarians are often also researchers and authors
in their own right. And Emerald publishes many titles in the field of
Library and Information Science/Studies (LIS). So Emerald, in addressing
librarians, is in fact addressing the researchers/authors that are
submitting to their publications.

I suspect the Emerald communication might have been in response to
Heather's message to the scholcomm list from several days ago that I copied
and pasted below.
-DeDe
University of Saskatchewan
University Library

*Heather Morrison's email:

LIS publisher Emerald has introduced a 24-month embargo on authors whose
institutions have open access mandates, according to Richard Poynder on
Open and Shut:
http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/open-access-emeralds-green-starts-to.html

This is a significant backtrack from what was a really good open access
archiving policy.

As of today, there are 146 titles listed under Library and Information
Studies in the Directory of Open Access Journals, and most say Publication
Fee - No:
http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=subject&cpId=129&uiLanguage=en

Librarians, Emerald current and potential editors, authors, and reviewers,
perhaps it is time to ditch this "it's about the profit" publisher in
favour of journals that prioritize sharing of our knowledge? If none of the
current DOAJ titles fit your scholarly niche - why not start your own?

best,

Heather G. Morrison
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com*


On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Stevan Harnad <amsciforum at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 8:57 AM, Wagner, A. Ben <abwagner at buffalo.edu>wrote:
>
> I have not followed the Emerald issue since it is not a publisher I deal
>> with as a librarian or a scholar, so I will not comment directly on that
>> issue.  However, at least from a U.S. perspective and speaking much more
>> generally, I'm not sure complaints from U.S. academics about businesses
>> being business-focused will carry much weight. From where I sit, academia
>> is getting more and more like big business every day with enterprise/start
>> up zones, ROI on research, running leaner and meaner, pursue of grants and
>> industry partnerships while teaching sometimes suffer (though that is
>> always denied), looking for every opportunity to license/commercialize
>> research, and I could go on.  This isn't necessarily all bad.  Just
>> pointing out that academia, again at least in the U.S., is a business as
>> much as any corporation, imho.  So I ask the question.  In academia, is
>> business trumping scholarship? So which is the pot and which is the kettle?
>>
>
> Yes, publishing is a business.
>
> Yes, universities are (alas) becoming more and more like businesses.
>
> But research is research.
>
> And researchers are researchers.
>
> And research is funded by tax-payers.
>
> And the uptake, usage, applications, productivity and progress of
> scientific and scholarly research are obstructed by access barriers.
>
> So let's not obscure the real contingencies by saying "it's all just
> business."
>
> What's not evident to me is why Emerald is addressing its attempt at
> self-justification to libraries, when it is their authors' research that is
> at issue:
>
> Libraries are the clients for Emerald's product.
>
> But authors are Emerald's suppliers. And they supply free of charge. And
> so do the peers who do the peer review for Emerald journals.
>
> So please, Emerald, address researchers and tax-payers, not your business
> clientele: Librarians have absolutely nothing to do with Emerald policy on
> author self-archiving.
>
>  Stevan Harnad
>
> Views expressed herein are my personal reviews and not reflective of my
>> institution, administration, management, or faculties.
>>
>> --A. Ben Wagner, Sciences Librarian
>> University at Buffalo
>> abwagner at buffalo.edu
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> GOAL mailing list
> GOAL at eprints.org
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/attachments/20130621/df6fdef7/attachment-0001.html