[GOAL] Re: Dutch begin their Elsevier boycott

[Thomas Krichel]

  Danny Kingsley writes

> Dutch universities have begun their boycott of Elsevier due to a complete
> breakdown of negotiations over Open Access.

  I guess the Summer silly season is here. 

> As a first step in boycotting the publisher, the Association of
> Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) has asked all scientists that
> are editor in chief of a journal published by Elsevier to give up
> their post.

  It would be very foolish indeed for any academic to give up such a
  prestigious post forever, presumably, to come in aid of a temporary,
  presumably, boycott, with no compensation from the boycotters.

> If this way of putting pressure on the publishers does not work, the
> next step would be to ask reviewers to stop working for Elsevier.

  This may have a small effect since reviewing for journals is a
  tedium to many academics. Dutch academics can use the boycott as as
  excuse not to review. But publishers can draw on a non-Dutch
  reviewers.

> After that, scientists could be asked to stop publishing in Elsevier
> journals.

  Good luck with that. As an academic you have to take submission
  decisions based on the likelihood to be in a good journal, not
  based on some boycott ideology. 

  The whole strategy makes very little sense whatsoever from a
  theoretical perspective thinking about academics' incentives. And
  there is historical evidence that adds weight to the theoretical
  argument. Recall the Public Library of Science.  Before it became a
  publishing business, it was a grass root group. It issued a similar
  boycott call. I can't find the text now. I guess they withdrew the
  text from public view. By my impression it was completely
  ineffective. 

  Libraries have created, and continue to maintain the closed-access
  publication system by subscribing to journals. They should stop
  subscribing to journals and use the proceeds to fund open access
  publications.  Publishers will get the same revenue stream but open
  access is achieved. 

  In short: Stop bothering academics and publishers about a 
  library-made problem. 

-- 

  Cheers,

  Thomas Krichel                  http://openlib.org/home/krichel
                                              skype:thomaskrichel