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 [log in to unmask] -----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