So much for swim or sink
A bunch of big shot publishing companies have hired the infamous Dezenhall Resources (nothing needs to be said about the company, check the link instead) to counter the open source publishing. Including such companies as PLoS, who, for a nominal fee, offer free access to your article online. LiLoLe has a lot of stuff (although in Slovene) on open source, and it takes only a shred of common sense to realise why this is a good idea.
Here are a few takes with such lofty arguments that a nine year old would see through them.
The consultant advised them to focus on simple messages, such as “Public access equals government censorship“. He hinted that the publishers should attempt to equate traditional publishing models with peer review, and “paint a picture of what the world would look like without peer-reviewed articles“.
How can a government censor something that is freely available - anyone can publish it. If I recall correctly, PLoS website charges about $1250 to publish a single article. This is, I understand, quite standard. They will lower their price if your project didn’t have enough resources allocated for publishing. Sounds pretty fair to me.
Another trick that PLoS has up it’s proverbial sleeve is the “ranking”. Any article will get published, but that doesn’t mean that it will be successful. Users may rank the article and even post comments - think of it as open source peer-review with a carrot! I don’t have the facts, but I would venture a guess that most cited works are published in top journals, that don’t publish everything they see. This way, if your work is solid and popular, you are, statistically, more prone to get more citations than if your peer had to buy the article.
The publishers’ link with Dezenhall reflects how seriously they are taking recent developments on access to information.
Good, at least we know OO works.
Hat tip to Deltoid.
