From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]> Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2017 01:17:33 +0000 I think the issues with Beall’s List arose from two fundamental problems: 1. Beall was one person, managing the list as a professional service in his spare time. I don’t think there’s any way for a list like his to be effectively and responsibly managed on that basis. 2. Beall had a clear animus towards open access, which he expressed explicitly and publicly. This, I think, led him to be less than compellingly motivated to be fair and scrupulous in his dealings with the publishers he blacklisted. Now, just to be clear: I don’t think he was dishonest. But I don’t think he felt very motivated to (for example) be clear and transparent with the appeals process (such as it was), and he certainly was not good about saying specifically why particular publishers were blacklisted. To some degree this may have been a function of problem #1 above, but I think his antagonism towards OA publishing generally contributed to this second problem also. I don’t expect Cabell’s to suffer from either of those problems. Cabell’s has (to my knowledge) no anti-OA agenda, and they have paid staff who will be managing the list and who I hope and expect will manage it responsibly and fairly. (And, of course, the fact that they’ll be charging for access to it means that they’ll have resources to maintain the service.) I’ve heard people grumble about the fact that Cabell’s will be charging, but honestly, I’m not sure this is a service that can be provided effectively without a revenue stream. It would be lovely if it could be free, but you could say the same about health care and food. Free is a great price if you can get it — but when it’s the price offered for our own labor we tend not to like it so much. That’s just my $.02. --- Rick Anderson Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication Marriott Library, University of Utah Desk: (801) 587-9989 Cell: (801) 721-1687 [log in to unmask] On 7/13/17, 4:27 PM, "LibLicense-L Discussion Forum on behalf of LIBLICENSE" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of [log in to unmask]> wrote: >From: "Sowards, Steve" <[log in to unmask]> >Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2017 12:42:59 +0000 > >Given the widespread interest on this list in Beall's list and the >factors that led to its demise, I wonder if anyone has comments or >information about this new for-fee alternative from Cabell? > >http://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/u-s-company-launches-new-blacklist-deceptive-academic-journals/ > >What prevents the same limitations, cautions and misunderstandings >from playing out once again? > >Steven Sowards >Associate Director for Collections >Michigan State University Libraries >366 W. Circle Drive >East Lansing MI 48824