Scientists protest cost of research journals

Here is a Washington Times article on the Elsevier boycott. They label it a “white-coat revolution”.

ELSEVIER WITHDRAWS SUPPORT FOR THE RESEARCH WORKS ACT

At Elsevier, we have always focused on serving the global research community and ensuring the best possible access to research publications and data. In recent weeks, our support for the Research Works Act has caused some in the community to question that commitment.

Now that’s a way to put it.

Elsevier Boycott Not a Petition, But “A Declaration of Independence”

Wired’s David Dobbs shares his view on the Elsevier Boycott.

The Real Fake Elsevier

Here is some satire on the whole Elsevier thing.

My (very small) part in this story started a little over a week ago, when I started a parody Twitter account called “@FakeElsevier“. Since then, I’ve been posting as much Elsevier-related satire as I can manage in my free time, 140 characters at a time. It’s been carthartic for me to inject a tiny bit of humor into an otherwise frustrating and seemingly impossible situation, and the account has gotten much more play on the internet than I was expecting. It seems that others in the academic community want to laugh about this too, even if the jokes all have the flavor of gallows humor.

Academic publisher Elsevier hit with growing boycott

Here is the CBC News’ coverage on the Elsevier boycott.

What if we just post PDFs on the open web?

Here is a conversation between Mike Taylor and Liz Smith (Director of Global Internal Communications at Elsevier). It’s a bit of a culture clash but worth reading.

In a long and interesting comment, Liz wrote (among much else):

This is where there seems to be deliberate obtuseness. Sticking a single PDF up online is easy. But there are millions of papers published every year. It takes a hell of a lot of people and resources to make that happen. You can’t just sling it online and hope somebody can find it. The internet doesn’t happen by magic.

And I replied:

Actually, you can and I do. That is exactly how the Internet works. I don’t have to do anything special to make sure my papers are found — Google and other search engines pick them up, just like they do everything. So to pick an example at random, if you search for brachiosaurus re-evaluation, the very first hit will be my self-hosted PDF of my 2009 JVP paper on that subject. [Correction: I now see that it’s the third hit; the PDF of the correction is top.] Similarly, search for xenoposeidon pdf and the top hit is — get ready for a shock! — my self-hosted PDF of my 2007 Palaeontology paper on that subject.