From: Nawin <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:32:18 -0600
I wonder about how the same scientists feel about universities that keep
increasing tuition faster than most journal prices and offering courses of
marginal value that students are often required to take.
N. Gupta
-----Original Message-----
From: LibLicense-L Discussion Forum
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 5:35 PM
Subject: Elsevier Publishing Boycott Gathers Steam
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/elsevier-publishing-boycott-gathers-s
team-among-academics/35216
Chronicle of Higher Education - blog
Elsevier Publishing Boycott Gathers Steam Among Academics
January 30, 2012, 6:50 pm
By Josh Fischman
The eminent mathematician Timothy Gowers vows to do no work for Elsevier.
Elsevier, the global publishing company, is responsible for The
Lancet, Cell, and about 2,000 other important journals; the iconic
reference work Gray’s Anatomy, along with 20,000 other books—and one
fed-up, award-winning mathematician.
Timothy Gowers of the University of Cambridge, who won the Fields
Medal for his research, has organized a boycott of Elsevier because,
he says, its pricing and policies restrict access to work that should
be much more easily available. He asked for a boycott in a blog post
on January 21, and as of Monday evening, on the boycott’s Web site The
Cost of Knowledge, nearly 1,900 scientists have signed up, pledging
not to publish, referee, or do editorial work for any Elsevier
journal.
The company has sinned in three areas, according to the boycotters: It
charges too much for its journals; it bundles subscriptions to lesser
journals together with valuable ones, forcing libraries to spend money
to buy things they don’t want in order to get a few things they do
want; and, most recently, it has supported a proposed federal law
(called the Research Works Act) that would prevent agencies like the
National Institutes of Health from making all articles written by its
grant recipients freely available.
[SNIP]
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