From: Alex Holzman <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2019 13:48:19 -0400

Anthony is smarter than I to respond to Eric's post with sarcasm.  With all due respect, the post violates the spirit of this list, where librarians and publishers often strenuously disagree, but almost always remain entirely civil.  I don't speak for others, but as a former full-time and now part-time publisher, I don't appreciate being portrayed as a blood-sucking, money-grabbing beast.  I spent years in both commercial and non-profit publishing and worked with librarians over the decades and I can assure you the people on both sides of this issue, whatever their disagreements, are overwhelmingly good and decent people working to disseminate learning as broadly as they can.  (The post is also ignorant in its assumption that all publishers are for-profit, but that is kind of beside the point.)  I would like to believe this was a heat of the moment post because I don't know how any of us could resolve our issues if one side consists solely of devils (and the other of angels?).  And I don't know how any of us could actually believe such is the case.

Alex Holzman

On Sun, Jun 30, 2019 at 9:19 AM LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 07:55:29 +0100

I am fascinated by Eric’s assurance. Is this based on any special evidence which he can produce? He may well have done a study on how publishers think which is not known to me and which I cannot detect.

 

Anthony


 

From: Eric Elmore <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2019 17:07:19 +0000

 

I think a more accurate way of understanding this statement is that

it's in the back of the mind of every Publisher, rather than in the

minds of the Librarians.  Librarians are interested in getting the

most content and value for our dwindling budgets in an ethical manner.

Not an easy or simple task.  Publishers, on the other hand, are

concerned with extracting every penny, ruble, shekel, pence, yuan,

yen, and/or ounce of blood they can from anyone who wants to use the

content they "publish".

 

It's Capitalism 101.  Once you understand the frame of mind someone

who works for a publisher, of course they think libraries are

leveraging a free resource such as SciHub.  Because that's exactly

what they would do if they were in the libraries position.  When the

only objective is the endless acquisition of money silly little things

like whether or not a resource is legal or ethical no longer have

relevance.

 

[SNIP]