From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2018 03:51:36 +0000

> One far-fetched solution is a return to journal subscriptions.

As any working librarian could have told the Economist's correspondent,
reports of the death of the subscription journal have been greatly
exaggerated.

---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication
J. Willard Marriott Library
Univ. of Utah

------------------------------

From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2018 19:38:34 -0700

The Economist's occasional correspondent on scholarly communication
has reported again:

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/06/23/
some-science-journals-that-claim-to-peer-review-papers-do-not-do-so

Two points of interest were an update on the post-Beall listing issue
(Cabell's has their list, but Beall's list is being kept up by someone
who refuses to be identified?) and the report that some journals with
sketchy practices are learning to simulate virtue by occasionally
retracting articles (Economist calls this 'a superb piece of
subterfuge').  The article credits a shift to APC-based OA as a
contributor to the problem (by encouraging new entrants on the
publisher side) and the article then concludes:

"One far-fetched solution is a return to journal subscriptions.  These
have for so long been excoriated as rent-seeking profit-inflators
restricting the flow of information that a change of course would now
be unthinkable.  But those who pushed for their elimination might be
wise to pause for thought.  As the old proverb has it, be careful what
you wish for.  You might get it."

Jim O'Donnell
ASU