From: Ari Belenkiy <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2013 18:04:49 -0800

Peggy,

>the results are peer reviewed (not by publishing staff) and
>yet, the very last, and smallest contributor to the finished product, the
>publisher, gets the golden Wonka bar.

Publisher provides independent peer reviewing (often paying salaries
to its referees).

Independent peer reviewing assures that the work:

1. Has novelty, i.e makes progress in the field.
2. Don't contain obvious mistakes.
3. Nothing was stolen from others and old results are correctly attributed.

This and only this trio is qualified to be considered as academic
publishing. Without it, authors are in the mess of unsupported
results, wrong attributions, theft and outright lies. To eliminate or
simply reduce this mess authors are ready to pay any price. Like
taxpayers who are ready to pay high taxes to support order in the
state.

So, again, publisher is a greatest contributor to the finished
product, not the smallest.

Ari Belenkiy

SFU
Canada



On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 3:40 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: "Hoon, Peggy" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2013 16:24:32 +0000
>
> And again, the point is missed.  What do you think?  Librarians are caught
> in a disintegrating mess of a system that was neither their making nor do
> they have any truly effective means of influencing it other than educating
> the faculty.  I repeat what  you all should know well: faculty, whose
> minds conceive of the research in the first place (not the publisher),
> obtain funding to conduct the research (not from the publisher) and
> proceed to research in their labs and facilities provided to them, along
> with a salary, benefits, retirement, etc. (also not from the publisher),
> analyze their research and write up their results (without publisher
> involvement), the results are peer reviewed (not by publishing staff) and
> yet, the very last, and smallest contributor to the finished product, the
> publisher, gets the golden Wonka bar.  Why?  Because the FACULTY give it
> to them.  WHY do the faculty do this - give away their most precious and
> hard-earned asset, their IP?  Because the publishers demand it.  Now what
> is the most accurate word for that exchange? (fair and informed bargain? I
> think not.  How about blackmail, would that come closer?  Shall we just
> leap off the libelous diving board with the rest of the industry and call
> it "steal"?  Behind the legal jargon, isn't that what it is?)
>
> Did you notice the librarian in any of that workflow?  Nope.  The
> librarian, is without much wiggle room.  The very faculty who engineered
> this mess now insist that their librarian buy them back what they all
> couldn't sign away fast enough. (and, by the way, the publishers have ZERO
> product to sell without the faculty/research contributions. Nothing.  They
> create nothing.)  But once it is "their IP, by heavens, woe be unto them,
> including the hand that feeds them" should anything be used without the
> pieces of silver being exchanged.  Librarians only have so much money to
> spend and that's it.  If the unrelenting maw of publisher's fees didn't
> utterly lay waste any increase a usually flat library budget might get,
> the system might have trundled on forever.  That the pitchforks are raised
> now is because no matter how much was sacrificed to the maw, it was and
> will NEVER BE ENOUGH.  And while I'm at it, take your blood pressure
> medicine and read a few hundred license agreements like I have for a
> couple of decades nearly every single day.  If you find them reasonable
> and acceptable, I would recommend that you immediately seek another line
> of work and quit wasting your employer's money.  The entries that
> suggested this bur-ha-ha might finally penetrate faculty consciousness
> have grasped the most important take-away.
>
> So don't challenge Chuck to "walk the walk" (who says that anymore?) and
> cancel Elsevier.  You think that is a measure of his convictions?  Not
> that simple, not by a long shot.
>
> Peggy Hoon
>
> --
> Peggy E. Hoon, J.D.
>
> Scholarly Communications Librarian
> J. Murrey Atkins Library
> University of North Carolina at Charlotte
>
> phone: 704-687-5540
> fax: 704-687-3050
> [log in to unmask]