They wouldn't call it struggle if it wasn't difficult...
But there is some hope on the horizon, and sense in the world
Best
paul
-----Original Message-----
From: tom stafford [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 13 February 2007 13:57
To: tom stafford
Subject: Elsevier latest
Dear Friends
After some delay [1], we will be sending our open letter to Jan Hommen, chairman of Reed Elsevier, this week. This will hopefully be published in The Times Higher Education Supplement on 22nd of February.
Thanks to all those who signed the open letter, and to those who signed the on-line petition. To those of you who haven't signed the open letter, it is not too late to do so - simply send me your name, position and discipline, and institution, in this form:
Tom Stafford, PhD
Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience
University of Sheffield, UK
Text of the letter, and the list of current signatories are available via the links at the end of this email [2,3]
The online petition will remain open indefinitely [4]
In other news
=============
- The Rowntree Foundation have sold their £2 million stake in Elsevier over the issue [5]
- Saturday's Guardian ran a column by Ben Goldacre celebrating open-access publishing and condemning Elsevier for their arms and torture trade links:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,,2010036,00.html
- Paul Chatterton and David Featherstone have written an editorial for Elsevier's journal Political Geography 'Intervention: Elsevier, critical geography and the arms trade' [6], which is accompanied by extended discussion of the issue of Elsevier's dual-involvement in academia and the arms trade. Paul and Dave have also persuaded a number of authors to pull out of involvement with Elsevier's "The Encyclopedia of Human Geography"
- 'Science for Peace' published an article in their Fall newsletter about the issue 'Reed Elsevier & the Arms Trade:Profiting From Both Cause and Cure' [7] (by me)
All in all good news! And demonstrating the strong support that the campaign finds among academics and medics. There's lots more to be done, about which I will be in touch shortly. Please do get in touch if you have any ideas or comments.
My resource pages, including ideas for action, maintained here http://idiolect.org.uk/elsevier/
Please forward this link, or this email, to anyone who you think might be interested or like to be involved.
All the best
tom
Links:
======
[1] Principally caused by a different arms trade scandal in the UK, see http://www.caat.org.uk/issues/sfo/sfo-latest.php
[2] Open letter text here:
http://idiolect.org.uk/elsevier/docs/openletter_feb07.txt
[3] List of letter signatories here:
http://idiolect.org.uk/elsevier/docs/all_names.txt
[4] Online petition here:
http://www.idiolect.org.uk/elsevier/petition.php
[5] Announced monday, story at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/13/cnreed13.xml
and
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2011588,00.html
[6] Paul Chatterton and David Featherstone (2007) Intervention:
Elsevier, critical geography and the arms trade, Political Geography, 26, 1, 3-7. Link:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=PublicationURL&_cdi=6026&_pubType=J&_auth=y&_acct=C000010619&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=128590&md5=9ac817fd513a56ea2820bf594a7f3589
[7] 'Science for Peace is a charitable Canadian-based organization of natural scientists, engineers, social scientists, scholars in the humanities and lay people throughout the world. It brings together professors, graduate students and first degree students who are concerned about peace, justice and making an environmentally sustainable future. SfP has NGO status at the United Nations.'
http://scienceforpeace.sa.utoronto.ca/Bulletin-2006/SFP_BULL_FALL-06.pdf
--
Tom Stafford
Department of Psychology
University of Sheffield
Western Bank,
Sheffield, S10 2TP, UK
[log in to unmask]
Tel +44 (0) 114 22 26620
Fax +44 (0) 114 276 6515
What's the link between academic publishing and the arms trade?
http://www.idiolect.org.uk/elsevier/
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