From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 23 May 2013 10:56:51 +0100

I think OA advocates are putting their heads in the sand if they ignore the
sheer number of the publishers on the list which Jeffrey Beall has compiled.
That is the problem.

It is nothing to do with OA as a business model or as a philosophy but it is
mainly an OA phenomenon because starting an OA journal (especially if you do
not have to pay an editor) is so much less of an investment. There are
really a very small number of subscription publishers who do not offer
proper peer review. Librarians are capable of discriminating so they cannot
survive. Scholars in countries like the US can discriminate though not
always recent ones. However it is really irritating for them to have to
check out and indentify the serious journals when they get in their inbox
several times a week an invitation to go on an editorial board or contribute
a paper. Kevin must know this and must have found out because I know he is
touch with academics at Duke.

It is no point banging on about small society journals being bought by large
commercial publishers. That is not relevant. Why is OA advocacy still so
strident? Incidentally I do not know of any small society journals being
bought. I know they have entered into partnerships as they have the BioOne.

Anthony

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Smith <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 00:18:12 +0000

It seems obviously true, to me, that all journals, whether OA or
subscription-bassed, should be judged on their merits.  And also that there
are predatory practices amongst some journal publishers of both types.  My
principal objection to Beall's list is that it is critical of only some of
those practices, based on the business model employed.  Why is to predatory
to ask an author to pay a few hundred dollars in processing charges for open
access, but not predatory to increase a small college's subscription to a
single journal 300% overnight (which has happened several times, in my
experience, when small society journals are bought by large commercial
publishers)?  Why is shoddy or non-existent peer-review predatory at an OA
journal, but not when it is discovered in a "traditional" journal from a
commercial publisher (as it sometimes is)?

It is also true, by the way, that bloggers need to be careful about
defamation.  Some of Beall's criticisms of specific publishers are stronger
than I would be comfortable making.  I hope and am prepared to believe that
he has evidence for what he says, since truth is always a defense against
defamation, at least in US courts.  But the post I found recently about
OMICS was pretty vague -- mentioning "evidence" without specification and
quoting a single anonymous scientist.  So I feel obligated to withhold
judgment about the specific accusation, while hoping that the threat is just
a bluff or that Jeffrey can rebuff it. I hope this mostly because of the
chilling effect that such threats can have on the free exchange of ideas
about scholarly publishing, independently of what I personally think about
the value of Beall's own contribution to that exchange.

Kevin

Kevin L. Smith, M.L.S., J.D.
Director of Copyright and Scholarly Communications Duke University Libraries
Durham, NC 27708 [log in to unmask]