Tuesday, 31 January 2012

Elsevier

The online initiative to boycott the Elsevier publishing company is gaining momentum. For particle theorists, signing to it does not take much. In our community, publishing in Elsevier has been considered, since several years already, on the same footing as farting at the dinner table: technically not forbidden, but somewhat disqualifying. It is heartening that this notion is now spilling outside our little world into large areas of mathematics, physics, and biology. This offers a realistic prospect for a change.

For those born yesterday, we resent Elsevier for:
  • charging exorbitant prices,
  • bundling their offer into all-or-nothing packages,
  • supporting SOPA/PIPA/RWA to the end of restricting freedom of information.
This adds up to the past record of setting up fake-peer-review medical journal, keeping the Chaos, Solitons and Fractals sham far too long, legal bullying, and supporting arms trade. Based on that list, you might object to the boycott by arguing that Elsevier is not infinitely more evil than an average publishing company. That's true, however, I personally view it as only a first step to reforming scientific publishing. Scientists, although modern in many respects, got entangled in a completely anachronic and very inefficient system of distribution and evaluation of their output. This could and should be changed. So, hitting Elsevier would be a largely symbolic move, akin to the storming of the Bastille. Once awareness is raised, it'll be time to march on Versaille and really change the balance of power.

As a particle physics blogger I should sadly note the LHC collaborations have been regularly publishing in Elsevier owned journals such as Physics Letters, Nuclear Physics, or Nuclear Instruments. I guess it's not purposely evil but simply inertia. So if you're an LHC experimentalist, please sign the pledge, and next time someone tries to submit to Elsevier please kick and scream; in case it doesn't help you may consider withdrawing your name from the publication. If the LHC could officially join the boycott, it would be a huge PR push for the initiative.

For further reading, see the posts of Tim Gowers, John Baez, Sean. And let's hope my historical analogy won't extend all the way to guillotining ;-)

12 comments:

  1. Kea31 January 2012 at 02:40

    Storming the Bastille, my ass. That actually takes guts.

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  2. Kea31 January 2012 at 02:44

    In fact, I'm sure some of these dudes are doing this just to save their necks when someone comes for their head.

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  3. Physicalist31 January 2012 at 02:44

    "Joan," eh? Does he know you call him that?

    I suppose I should be on board as a philosopher too. Which is something of a shame, since Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics is fairly good . . .

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  4. Jester31 January 2012 at 02:57

    :-) ... Joan would fit the revolutionary spirit... but sadly corrected.

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  5. Anonymous31 January 2012 at 10:45

    Aren't you worried about a Europe vs USA issue here?

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  6. anon1 February 2012 at 07:19

    This is the scenario i found myself in recently and maybe it's quite common:

    PRL rejected my paper (the bastards!) and asked me to submit it to the illustrious PRD. My reaction was screw you Physical Review, i'll send to another publisher. So what are the options then? Phys Lett B and JHEP, right? What a delightful choice - either a journal of the evil money suckers (elsevier's PLB), or the string theory journal (JHEP) i.e. journal of the community with the ridiculous and grotesque citation culture where it is normal and expected for even a short specialized technical paper to have 200+ references in its bibliography including a single reference listing 50+ articles that have nothing to do with the paper. ("For related work see [these 50 articles]"...)

    Given these options i chose PLB of course! If publishing there corresponds to farting during dinner then publishing in JHEP is equivalent to climbing onto the dinner table, pulling down your pants and taking a dump in the communal soup bowl!

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  7. Anonymous2 February 2012 at 03:04

    I have been on our university's library committee for several years. It was revealing and surprising to me that the head librarian not only does not hold a grudge against Elsevier, but appreciates it. They have changed their ways, reduced prices, become competitive and fair. I learned, for example, that the bundles of journals have actually spurred use of journals we did not carry before (librarians track usage and are elated to see their collections used). When the librarian computed cost per article-usage he found Elsevier is one of the best bargains. Apparently this is also teh case for others, see http://chronicle.com/article/As-Journal-Boycott-Grows/130600/

    So if not really more expensive we must ask: what is the difference between professional society journals and private ones? The latter are for-profit, the former use the revenues to fund a lot of other stuff. So, is this opposition to taking profits?

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  8. Aaron2 February 2012 at 12:53

    there is only one respected letter journal besides PLB (PRL). is it really a good idea to kill off the only competition?

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  9. Jester2 February 2012 at 16:37

    Indeed, in this case I'm against profit. Elsevier's turnover is of order 10^10$ per year. The point is that in the 21st century we don't need publishing companies at all. So it would be logical to make the publication system non-profit and divert the money into useful research.

    Aaron, yes, tearing down Bastille is not the final goal. When we take down PLB we should create an open-access alternative to PRL.

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  10. Anonymous2 February 2012 at 18:38

    It worked last time:

    http://www.caat.org.uk/issues/armsfairs/reedelsevier.php

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  11. Anonymous6 February 2012 at 18:59

    I was skeptical (did not have the time needed to form an opinion...) until I saw this:

    http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/727598/description#description

    these guys are .

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  12. Anonymous10 February 2012 at 04:16

    I was about to publish in IJGFS (International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science) but -unbelievable- the editorial board is made at 90% of USA & UK gastronomers!!! With all due respect, but, how can we rely in such a publisher??

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