[GOAL] Inside Higher Ed: All six editors and all 31 editorial board members of Lingua resign over Elsevier

[Richard Poynder]

I am posting this message on behalf of Jean-Claude Guédon:

 

 

The article below (thanks to Colin Steele) is an example of a courageous
move that must be supported by the libraries.

With regard to the Lingua (now Glossa) editorial board, libraries could, for
example,

1. Remove access to Lingua going forward (keep access to archive up to
December 31st, 2015) if caught in a Big Deal; remove Lingua from
subscriptions, starting in 2016, if not in a Big Deal

2. Support Glossa (the new journal) financially,

3. Promote Glossa widely. ERIH is already classifying the new journal at the
level of its current status by arguing that the quality of a journal is
linked to the editors and editorial board, and not to the publisher.

Researchers in linguistics, of course, should boycott Elsevier's Lingua from
now on.

This event also demonstrates the importance for Learned and scientific
societies not to sell the title of their journals to publishers. So long as
we foolishly evaluate research according to the place where it is published
(i.e. a journal title), publishers will hold a strong trump card.

Finally, this event displays the incredible behaviour of the multinational,
commercial, publishers with particular clarity. These are not the friends of
the scientific communication system we need.

 

>> 

 

Extract from Inside Higher Ed article:

 

“All six editors and all 31 editorial board members of Lingua, one of the
top journals in linguistics, last week resigned to protest Elsevier's
policies on pricing and its refusal to convert the journal to an open-access
publication that would be free online. As soon as January, when the
departing editors' noncompete contracts expire, they plan to start a new
open-access journal to be called Glossa.”

 

The article can be read in full here: 

 

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/02/editors-and-editorial-board-q
uit-top-linguistics-journal-protest-subscription-fees

 

For a list of some of the other coverage of this issue see here:
http://kaivonfintel.org/2015/11/05/lingua-roundup/

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/attachments/20151113/93213f85/attachment.html