Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2017 10:16:36 +0100

Hi David

I accept almost everything you say. What I was writing was partly tongue in cheek - especially about the ACS.

Yes indeed we both worked at different times for the same major university press and one could say more but I am not going to except to point out that the main role of the university vis-à-vis that university press might be seen as extracting as much money as possible from it.

The current UK government does not represent my beliefs  but I do have a vote and I can and do campaign to change it.

So can members of learned societies. They can campaign for change in the publishing policy of their publishing arm. Sometimes they do. They are representative of the community that belongs to them and these members are almost certainly the majority of researchers in that discipline and that country

Anthony

-----Original Message-----
From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 08:15:32 +0000

Hi Anthony

Two points, one specific, one general.  First the specific, you might want to speak to librarian friends of yours about the American Chemical Society’s publishing activity and gauge how they react to the suggestion that the ACS is, practically if not formally, part of a “small group of commercial actors”.

More generally, I wonder how genuinely representative university presses and society publishers are of the communities that they serve.
Often there is formal representation: a Publishing Committee, Delegates or Syndics, etc.who guide general policy.  But I suspect (having worked, like Anthony has, for a major university press and with society publishers) that a lot of the day-to-day, but nevertheless important, decisions do not have much membership input.
For example, I wonder how widely the APA consulted with its membership before issuing take-down notices for ‘unauthorised online postings of APA journal articles':

http://www.apa.org/pubs/authors/unauthorized-internet-posting.aspx

And I can’t imagine that a major chemistry society based in the UK consulted widely with its membership before attempting to impose massive price rises on customers.  Are these publishers really ‘representative bodies’?

David