From: Kevin Smith <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2013 13:00:47 +0000

Clay Shirky once wrote that "Publishing used to be a process, now it
is a button."  So perhaps the analogy that Joe is looking for is with
that "publish" button found on so many websites.

Honestly, however, I think Shirky's reduction is as mistaken as
Esposito's over-aggrandizement.  The best way to evaluate the value
added by academic publishers is to ask the authors of the content
those publishers publish.  By the way, those authors are seldom very
happy with their publishers; they are often quite angry.  So if the
publishers' job is to keep authors happy, they are very bad at it.

Generally academic authors think publishers add value is two ways.
The first is in printing, marketing and distribution.  This, of
course, is the aspect of publishing that has become a button, and the
desperation that some publishers feel over the loss of this most
visible and prominent value they add is evidenced by Joe's ridiculous
hyperbole.

The second value that academic authors think they get from publishers
today is reputation, the journal "brand."  In essence, publishing has
become an intellectual property trade --  authors surrender their
copyrights in exchange for a trademark.  We have seen, however, in the
rising number of retractions, in the attention to predatory publishing
practices, and in the criticism leveled at the impact factor, that the
value of traditional journal brands is, to some extent, eroding.

The future of academic publishing, and I do believe it has a future,
is in the services it can provide on both ends of the transaction --
to authors and to readers.  It is not clear to me that the traditional
publishers of scholarship, especially those most tied to large-scale
commercial transactions, will be best placed to provide the services
that will support publishing in the digital age.  But whoever does
fill those roles -- and the services are likely to become
disaggregated -- they will achieve their importance by listening to
what authors and readers really want, not by bandying about analogies.

Kevin L. Smith, M.L.S., J.D.
Director, Copyright and Scholarly Communication
Duke University Libraries
Durham, NC  27708
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-----Original Message-----
From: LibLicense-L Discussion Forum
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of LIBLICENSE
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2013 9:45 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Elsevier's Unforced Error

From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2013 09:50:11 -0500

Sorry you don't find the bauxite analogy illuminating, but let's heed
Joan Baez:  "Then give me another word for it/You who are so good with
words":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGMHSbcd_qI

And whatever metaphor you choose, please answer the question of how it
is if publishers add no value, as Chuck, implied, why are some
publishers so much more successful than others?  I would have thought
that when you multiply by zero, you get zero.

As for Jennifer Howard's question to Alicia Wise, I should mention
that I have never met Wise. I would expect her to distance herself
from the analogy, as any publisher would.  Keeping authors happy is
what publishers do.

Joe Esposito


On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 6:16 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Laura Quilter <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2013 22:21:09 -0500
>
> I look forward to explaining to faculty that their submitted
> manuscripts are the equivalent of bauxite to the publishers' aluminum.
>  I'm a fan of publishers' work and role in the process.  I believe
> that a lot of thinking needs to be done to figure out how to carry
> that value forward in a transitioning scholarly communication process,
> but this analogy really strains credulity.
>
> Scholars do a little more than merely uncovering "ore" (facts,
> perhaps?), and a submitted manuscript is considerably more than ore.
>
> The peer review process -- mediated and managed by the publishers, but
> not conducted by them -- oftentimes gives guidance as to further
> refinement, but the work is conducted by the authors.  Not just the
> experimental and research work, but the writing.
>
> If the intellectual input in an author's work were as significant as
> suggested by this bauxite-to-aluminum analogy, then the publisher
> wouldn't need a transfer of copyright agreement -- they would be
> co-authors -- or hell, just give them authorship and drop a footnote
> to the original authors.
>
> As for developing markets -- this too is really rather outrageous.
> Publishers do a lot of work in servicing markets, and exploiting them;
> call it development if you will, but the relationship of industrial
> manufacturers like aluminum to product development is again a very,
> very poor analogy to the relationship of scholarly and academic
> publishers to the consumers of research -- the fellow academics who
> read the materials, the libraries who purchase them, the industries
> that rely on them downstream or in other ways.
>
> I am really just flabbergasted by this analogy.
>
> Laura