<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 11:59 PM, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:A.Wise@elsevier.com" target="_blank">A.Wise@elsevier.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div><br>One of the dangers in this type of discussion is to confuse people with organizations. Alicia is an employee of Elsevier and her role in "Universal Access" - whatever than means - is ultimately to promote the profitability of the company.<br>
<br>Which is what she is doing on this list. I won't impute her motives and I can only guess at the corporate policy instructions she may or may not have to adhere to. I also have no idea whether she has any power to change anything - I suspect not. She has written about me: <br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US"><div><b><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> </span></b><p class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Peter M-R </span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">– You are frustrated by, and distrust, publishers. </span></p>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br>I trust publishers about as much as I trust other organizations in parallel markets. So I compare Elsevier to Microsoft and - yes - I trust Elsevier as much as I trust Microsoft. They are out to dominate the market (nothing immoral or illegal about that) and they use whatever business tools are legal (and occasionally overstep - but most companies jut about obey the law).<br>
<br>So yes, I generally trust Elsevier to obey the law and to maximize profits. <br><br>I've had 3 intense years with helpful employees of Elsevier - like Elsevier - and I trust them to keep the discussion going, keep things complicated, introduce delaying tactics, appeal to our better natures, etc. The last in particular. We academics actually like to look for the good in others and we don't like to cause problems. We're not actually very good at business - in fact we are lousy. Which is why we have meaningless contracts with publishers, and why we don't lobby in an an aggressive way. <br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Despite this it may still be more practical to work with us to evolve the current system into one more to your liking than to create a completely new one.</span></p>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br>15 years of more under Elsevier hegemony doesn't excite me for another 15.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Either way we agree absolutely that content mining is essential to advance science, but perhaps will need to agree to disagree (at least for the time being) about the best tactics to enable this to happen more broadly.</span></p>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br>Yes - I want it to happen know and you - quite rightly for your shareholders - want to delay and obfuscate and trivialise and Balkanise. That's what any good company would do in your position. The main trouble is that up to now it's been possible to do this behind the scenes with confidential contracts with librarians. I'm not keen on that and I intend - in so far as individuals can do it - to make sure that this is as public an issue a possible. <br>
<br>I'll be writing about some of this on my blog over the new few days. <br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US">
<div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<br clear="all"></div></div></blockquote></div><br>-- <br>Peter Murray-Rust<br>Reader in Molecular Informatics<br>Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry<br>University of Cambridge<br>CB2 1EW, UK<br>+44-1223-763069<br>