From: "Hinchliffe, Lisa W" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2019 23:15:05 +0000

FYI... just $85 for librarians! https://www.sspnet.org/community/join-ssp-now/

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe

From: JJE Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2019 08:26:46 -0400

Comparing the price of a scholarly publication, with an audience numbered in the hundreds, with a NY Times bestseller, with an audience of hundreds of thousands, reveals a lack of understanding of economics.

Individuals can get "Learned Publishing" by joining the Society for Scholarly Publishing for $180. That gets you not only the article in question but the entire journal, which is available to SSP members as part of an arrangement with ALPSP.  SSP has other benefits for members as well, including its support for "The Scholarly Kitchen," that beacon of truth and justice. "Kitchen" contributors include librarians (e.g., Lisa Hinchliffe, Rick Anderson).

Joe Esposito

Joseph J. Esposito
[log in to unmask]
@josephjesposito
+Joseph Esposito


On Wed, Aug 14, 2019 at 6:58 PM LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: "Smith, Kevin L" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2019 13:02:36 +0000

Paywalled indeed.  My own situation vis-à-vis this article is telling, I think.  We had to cancel our Wiley “big deal” last year because we could no longer afford it.  Learned Publishing is not among the comparatively small number of Wiley titles we retained.  A PDF of the individual article would cost me $42, almost three times more than what the latest NYT bestseller would cost me on Amazon.  In itself, this illustrates the market failures that have led to the development of ResearchGate and SciHub, and it is because they are fighting against a collapsing market that these lawsuits are futile.

 

Interestingly, if Professor Manley has published in a traditional law review, his article would quite likely be more widely available, since they are virtually all open.

 

Kevin Smith

University of Kansas

 

 

From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2019 15:50:07 -0700

Stewart Manley of the law faculty at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur has an interesting new article in Learned Publishing: "On the limitations of recent lawsuits against Sci-Hub, OMICS, ResearchGate, and Georgia State University," doi: 10.1002/leap.1254 (probably paywalled for many).  He assesses the effect on real world behavior of recent lawsuits advanced and won against institutions pressing forward with open access strategies by major publishers.  He gives these "key points":

 

  • The 2017 Sci-Hub judgment has, to date, proven unenforceable, and it appears that enforcing the 2019 OMICS judgment will similarly prove challenging.
  • Business developments and changing expectations over sharing digital content may also undermine the impact of the ongoing cases against ResearchGate and Georgia State University.
  • Stakeholders should consider these limitations when deciding how to resolve scholarly publishing disputes.

 

It's not unprecedented that attempts at definitive action/direction through political/legal institutions may be rendered irrelevant by adjustments in the behavior of stakeholders pursuing their own interests.  In this case it makes the author optimistic that moves toward open access will in fact prevail in spite of legal defeats or restrictions.

 

Jim O'Donnell

ASU