Or, in another words, there is nothing like a free lunch ... I totally agree with Alan, different options need to be searchedas new times of OA (or some rendition of it) are coming but there are some basic rules that must not be violated ...
regards,
Piotr
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sent from my handheld
please excuse the typing
-------- Oryginalna wiadomość --------
Od: Alan Gibbs <
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Data: 2016.07.26 16:26 (GMT+01:00)
Do:
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Temat: Re: Publication fees for Geology
It used to be that you joined your professional society and your subscription paid for the journal which you got as a member. As a society member you would also on occasion be asked to give your free time to review the work of others. (Note your time, not your
institution's or employer's). Libraries also bought the journal and it was then available through the library to those who weren't members of that society. Sometimes it might take a few weeks to get something through inter library loans and you could then
read it and make notes.
All that works well, you get a good quality science publishing available to all and the cost of doing this gets spread around those in whose interests it is to get their work published and to have some form of quality assurance.
There was, of course, always the opportunity for vanity or self-publishing and if you were sufficiently well know or smart you could write the text book and get a commercial publisher to pay to have it made and marketed. No one got rich in this, but the wages
of those involved in publication got paid.
Now no one wants to join a society because it's "too expensive", "what's in it for me?", "their meetings are always too difficult to get too", "I'm poor and deserve it for free" etc. etc. Everyone also seems to believe that everything should be as cheap as
chips or even better, free. Food, music, film, books, software, science writing. If it's not, somehow too many otherwise honest people think it's ok to copy it and stick it out there for themselves and others. Guys, it's not, it's theft.
You personally want and expect to be paid a salary for what you do. So you have to expect that those whose job it is to publish need paid too. If it helps you can think of it as a form of tax like the stuff you pay to the government to provide the police, hospitals,
roads or whatever.
Yes, with the internet it is perfectly reasonable to ask if the old fashioned way of publishing science in society (and commercial) hard copy journals is still the right way. The GSA is exploring one possible option. Yes, we need a new payment model.
But do not think that you should not pay for it, either directly from your salary or from your research fund. If it's is free it's going to be dominated by garbage or someone is taking you for a big ride somewhere else.
While we are at it, we should also be asking .."is the sheer quantity of published stuff the real problem?" Perhaps we already have sacrificed too much quality and got way too much garbage in exchange? In science, even with decent peer review, most of what
we do turns out to be garbage.
Rant over,
Alan
-----Original Message-----
From: Tectonics & structural geology discussion list [
mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Pavlis, Terry L
Sent: 26 July 2016 14:38
To:
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Subject: Re: Publication fees for Geology
Alain's point made me think of this to add to the discussion.
Another possibility of what might happen as a result of open access has not been discussed. The internet is a great equalizer in many things. One outcome of open access may be the decline of so called "prestigious journals" like Geology. We already see
this happening with online access to things formerly called "gray literature" which was formerly gray primarily because you couldn't find it in all but a tiny fraction of the libraries. Now the key for any publication is being able to find it via an online
search, and then it is up to the broader community to decide if the article is worth reading. In that case it matters far less if the article is in Nature or the journal of the xyzobscure society, so long as people can find it and evaluate it. Unfortunately
capitalism may overtake all this if the for profit publishers manipulate searches so their journals preferentially come up first... (not that I would be cynical in the land where capitalism is nearly a religion...)
Terry Pavlis
-----Original Message-----
From: Tectonics & structural geology discussion list [
mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alain Vauchez
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2016 3:36 PM
To:
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Subject: Publication fees for Geology
I enjoy the discussion that is running! It shows that this is clearly a serious issue for the future.
I would like to use Alistair example "A journalist might spend a day writing on article for hundreds of thousands of people to read. Sometimes we, collectively, spend months writing something for 100 people to read.". There is a fundamental difference: the
journalist struggle to be published and if so he will receive a salary. We struggle to be published and if so WE will have to pay publication fees and receive no salary at all…
The point is not wether the charges decided by GSA are too high or not. The point is that those who have done a work sufficiently good to be published in an international journal, are those who give the journal its notoriety, without them, no journal! So, it
is not correct that they have to pay to be published. It is unhealthy that they accept this rule because the evaluation of their activity is depending on such publications in top journal. Publications however are one of the fundamental components of our research
activity and this should stay so in the future. But, who will decide if they are able or not to pay such fees? During my career I had times with money and times with no or few money. For those who have only few money, but makes interesting research, it is
rather boring to always have to ask for not paying fees.
What will be the next step? If one writes a book he/she will have to pay to be published… etc?
Renée raised very interesting issues at the end of her email… We should think about.
Kind regards
Alain