Dear All,
The costly publishing discussion on this forum has been between academic
researchers.
I work as a consultant and do my research and publishing privately. With a
couple of memberships of professional societies I can cover a lot but not
all of my literature needs. The good old "request a copy of your
publication" works well, I get send a pdf and it seems a continuation of
the free reprint culture. What is a serious problem for me is, that I
depend on colour figures that cost me hundreds of Euros for one
publication. I suppose that such a high price covers the cost of
publishing. Asking then 30 Euros per pdf is simply too much, especially so
because this 30 Euros also needs to be paid for really old publications.
Refereeing manuscripts for publication takes a lot of time, because
usually referees take their task seriously, but is done for free. I have
not done any reviews for Elsevier and other for profit journals for many
years now, but also the Society journals ask the 30Euros for a pdf. The
reason that I continue to support society journals is, that their profits
go back into the scientific community in the form of subsidies for
conferences and scholarships. Clearly, when an interested colleague
requests a pdf of a publication, her or she can get it for free directly
from me. I wonder if a personal gift can be illegal?

Regards,
Dirk Nieuwland

Mark Brandon and Aaron Yoshinabu raise a number of quite valid issues
> concerning 'open' publishing.
>
> Mark recalls the claim made that 'the "for profit" journals charge too
> much for what they provide, and that the society journals are better
> because they cost less' .However I am assured by a colleague that even
> publication in the open journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, an
> Interactive Open Access Journal of the European Geosciences Union,
> personally cost him $2000! It would appear therefore that while access to
> a pdf in an Open Journal is free for one and all, the cost of publication
> is passed on to the authors or the relative granting authority supporting
> the research - effectively we the general public. (Don't tell the Tea
> Party!) Universities would undoubtedly save tons of money.
>
> Of all the papers published in the Open source journal Solid Earth (thanks
> Steve Kidder) since inception, only 14 are of importance to me within my
> admittedly limited geologic interest. At a reader rate of $30 per article
> that would cost me $420 if the journal were "for profit". I could of
> course reduce this cost to $0 if I were to request a copy from the author,
> or check on his/her website to see if a pdf was available in their
> publication list - and this is what I would probably do. I am not sure
> however that such a procedure is entirely legal.
>
> The more important consideration is that the publication be recorded in
> Google /Scholar. Given the tendency for there to be more and more
> published about less and less, thereby inflating enormously the volume of
> material published, Google provides a means of obviating the time
> consuming problem of systematically perusing every available journal. It
> make it easy to find articles that have a bearing on my particular
> research interests, nothwithstanding that perusal can sometimes lead to
> the finding of the occasional unexpected 'treasure'.
>
> He also asks us to "Consider this question: Would you choose to publish in
> a society journal, knowing that, in the future, your paper might languish
> in some old, inaccessible format because society did not have the funds or
> the willpower to convert to the new format?". That would apply to some of
> my papers dating back to the 60s and 70s, but I have personally taken care
> to have them archived on line, even with the addition of supplementary
> kmls. The bigger problem is getting younger authors to incorporate the
> information into their knowledge base!!
>
>
> Mark also remarks that "My hunch is that science publication will move
> away from the old journal-style publication process, to a self-publication
> process that will include privately solicited pre-publication reviews (if
> you are wise enough to do so), and a kind of post-publication review, as
> is done at Amazon where readers will provide reviews and also vote to sort
> those reviews so that higher quality reviews appear at the top.". A post-
> or syn-publication review system would also be favoured by Aaron. In as
> much as I preferentially turn to the Comments section of any journal (or
> newspaper for that matter) I can only applaud a comment/review system as
> seen in such Open journals as Solid Earth. The speed of digital posting in
> Open journals makes it much easier to correct the leniency of incompetent
> or or incestuous 'reviewers', and lay open any mistaken or unjustified
> conclusion.
>
>
> ?Aaron is concerned that "we must also be supportive of the junior
> scientists (even Associate Profs in the US system) who will not find it as
> easy to disregard publishing in for-profit publishing houses such as
> Elsevier. Currently, journals such as EPSL, Geochimica, Tectonophysics
> (and J. Struc. Geol., to a lesser extent) have reasonable impact factors
> that, unfortunately, are assessed by university administrators who
> ultimately grant tenure and promotion." Admittedly this is a concern, for
> which I have no obvious solution - the problem of evaluation certainly
> needs to be more widely discussed.
>
> Bill Church
>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Brandon, Mark
>   To: [log in to unmask]
>   Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 11:07 PM
>   Subject: Re: Harvard takes on publishers
>
>
>   What is one to say, "Bravo Harvard, for taking on those money-gouging
> publishers?" And why are routing for Harvard, who should be will and
> more than able to help with the costs of scholarly publication. (For
> full disclosure, I am a professor at Yale, which, like Harvard, is a
> non-profit private university.)
>
>
>   This topic has come up in the past, with cries that the "for profit"
> journals charge too much for what they provide, and that the society
> journals are better because they cost less. Keep in mind that none of us
> know the true cost imposed by  journal publication given that all
> journals rely on volunteer reviews, which in terms of time donated by
> reviewers probably represents a much larger cost burden than the
> subscription fees billed to individuals and libraries.
>
>
>   In my mind, the most important person in the business of publishing is
> the author, and journals should be focused on ensuring that the papers
> that authors entrust to their journals get wide circulation for as long
> as humanly possible. I was shocked to watch over the last 10 years as
> GSA and AGU attempted to make the argument that there was no need to
> digitize older papers. I know that they have come around to digitizing
> all of their publications (including the GSA's infamous microfiche
> publications, which were finally released in digital form about 2 months
> ago). At the same time, I was surprised to see how quickly the "for
> profits" journal managed to convert their published journals into
> digital resources.
>
>
>   Consider this question:  Would you choose to publish in society journal,
> knowing that, in the future, your paper might languish in some old,
> inaccessible format because society did not have the funds or the
> willpower to convert to the new format?  This question summarizes the
> issue that has played out over the last 10 years.
>
>
>   Let's go back to the author. How many times have you, after much
> searching, finally found that essential paper, only to learn that your
> library does not subscribe to a digital version of that journal? Of
> course, you can pay ~$30 to get a pdf of the paper, but you might
> wonder, as I have, how did the journal manage to come up with that
> price? I also think about the poor author, who, if he or she could see
> me at that moment, would beg the journal to please let me read the
> paper. The $30 rate is the going price for almost all journals,
> regardless if they are "for profit" or "non-for profit". Given the
> subscriptions at my university, this situation most often plays out for
> AAPG and Royal Society journals and publications. I often pay the fee
> out of my pocket.... but I image the poor authors, chanting "Let my
> paper free".
>
>
>   Let me end with a bit of speculation.... I think that science publishing
> is following the same transition that played out in the music industry.
> In the olden days, the main cost was ink and paper. Now, anyone can
> produce and distribute a professionally looking paper or book. Journals
> can claim their content is of higher quality because it has been through
> peer review, but that process is expensive (in terms of volunteered
> time) and also not without problems (how can we ensure quality with just
> two reviews, and are their enough qualified reviewers to handle the full
> volume of papers that need review?) My hunch is that science publication
> will move away from the old journal-style publication process, to a
> self-publication process that will include privately solicited
> pre-publication reviews (if you are wise enough to do so), and a kind of
> post-publication review, as is done at Amazon where readers will provide
> reviews and also vote to sort those reviews so that higher quality
> reviews appear at the top. We all manage quite well in selecting our
> other reading materials, such as books, magazines, and newspapers,
> without the benefit of a review process. At this stage, the libraries
> will be busy managing archival materials from the pre-digital era, and
> there will no longer any heated debates about libraries being gouged by
> "for profit" publishers.
>   Best,
>   Mark Brandon
>
>
>   On Thursday, April 26, 2012, Steven Kidder wrote:
>
>
>     A few months back there was a discussion (I believe on this list) of
> an open access, or at least a society journal, alternative to Journal
> of Structural Geology (Elsevier). As far as I can tell, the European
> Geosciences Union's new journal Solid Earth looks like it would fit
> this bill perfectly:
>
>     http://www.solid-earth.net/
>
>     Solid Earth (SE) is an international scientific journal dedicated to
> the publication and discussion of multidisciplinary research on the
> composition, structure and dynamics of the Earth from the surface to
> the deep interior at all spatial and temporal scales.
>
>     The journal invites short communications, research articles, review
> articles and commentaries on all aspects of the Solid Earth,
> comprising of observational, experimental, and theoretical
> investigations (for details see manuscript types).
>
>     The main subject areas include geochemistry, geodesy, geodynamics,
> geomorphology, geophysics, magma and rock physics, magnetism, mineral
> physics, palaeontology, petrology, sedimentology, seismology, soil
> system science, stratigraphy, structural geology, tectonophysics and
> volcanology (for details see journal subject areas).
>
>     Solid Earth represents the cutting edge of electronic publishing, and
> it encourages the use of innovative data analysis and visualization
> schemes and formats.
>
>     Solid Earth has an innovative two-stage publication process involving
> the scientific discussion forum Solid Earth Discussions (SED), which
> has been designed to:
>     foster scientific discussion;
>     maximise the effectiveness and transparency of scientific quality
> assurance;
>     enable rapid publication;
>     make scientific publications freely accessible.
>
>     In the first stage, papers that pass a rapid access peer-review are
> immediately published on the SED website. They are then subject to
> Interactive Public Discussion, during which the referees' comments
> (anonymous or attributed), additional short comments by other members
> of the scientific community (attributed) and the authors' replies are
> also published in SED. In the second stage, the peer-review process is
> completed and, if accepted, the final revised papers are published in
> SE. To ensure publication precedence for authors, and to provide a
> lasting record of scientific discussion, SED and SE are both
> ISSN-registered, permanently archived and fully citable.
>
>
>
>