Science-Journal Publishers Take Fight Against Open-Access Policies to Congress

How much more graceful not to mention that the writer whose book is under review neglected to mention one’s own book when every reader who is up on the subject will realize that your book should have been mentioned. The high road is better than the low road, and not just for speed. The view is better too. Generosity and forbearance are so rare in reviews that they stand out like glittering specks of gold in a pan of gravel.

“I myself review a fair number of books…” You couldn’t help it, could you? :)

Read the bill.  It’s horrible!

It prohibits any federal agency from network dissemination of any “private-sector research work”.  What is “private sector research work”?  Not what you think.  The bill defines it as: “an article intended to be published in a scholarly or scientific publication … describing or interpreting research funded in whole or in part by a Federal agency and to which a commercial or nonprofit publisher has made or has entered into an arrangement to make a value-added contribution, including peer review or editing.” 

So the government pays for the research.  The researchers do all the work.  Other researchers do the peer review.  And the publishers make a “value-added contribution” which apparently trumps all that has gone an before.  Unbelievable.  Have we entered the Twilight Zone?

There are plenty of sites that track and provide light on campaign contributions, and it will be easy to link and publicize the link between publishing industry special interest contributions and particular sponsors or co-sponsors.  The Chronicle could take the lead on this.  In going through campaign donators, you might also stumble over how for-profit education has entered the funding fray. The whole House is in play this coming autumn, and taxpayer access should play well, if it is played loud enough.

This legislation bought and paid for by Elsevier, Wiley, Thomson, American Chemical Society, et al.

It is not a coincidence that an Elsevier-backed PAC has funded Rep. Maloney’s election campaigns and, to a lesser extent, those of Rep. Issa. Maloney has been their top recipient of campaign contributions since 2008. Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2012&strID=C00345793

In his latest Scholarly Communications blog post, Kevin Smith hits the nail squarely on the head with his analysis of this bill and the ongoing, leach-like behavior of the publishing community.  See the post at:   http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2012/01/05/breaking-technology/

“Research Works Act H.R.3699: The Private Publishing Tail Trying To Wag The Public Research Dog, Yet Again”

http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/867-guid.html

EXCERPT:

The US Research Works Act (H.R.3699): 

“No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that — (1) causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher of such work; or (2) requires that any actual or prospective author, or the employer of such an actual or prospective author, assent to network dissemination of a private-sector research work.”

Translation and Comments: 

“If public tax money is used to fund research, that research becomes “private research” once a publisher “adds value” to it by managing the peer review.”

[Comment: Researchers do the peer review for the publisher for free, just as researchers give their papers to the publisher for free, together with the exclusive right to sell subscriptions to it, on-paper and online, seeking and receiving no fee or royalty in return].

“Since that public research has thereby been transformed into “private research,” and the publisher’s property, the government that funded it with public tax money should not be allowed to require the funded author to make it accessible for free online for those users who cannot afford subscription access.”

[Comment: The author's sole purpose in doing and publishing the research, without seeking any fee or royalties, is so that all potential users can access, use and build upon it, in further research and applications, to the benefit of the public that funded it; this is also the sole purpose for which public tax money is used to fund research.]”

H.R. 3699 misunderstands the secondary, service role that peer-reviewed research journal publishing plays in US research and development and its (public) funding….

http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/867-guid.html

theart is right. It’s interesting to think that some of the institutions that pay for these overpriced subscriptions are paying for content that’s federally funded and produced at the same institutions. Much of the “value added” is in the trust that we place in the publishers that prestigious journals will keep their standards high. Libraries can’t afford to support the little monopolies that publishers and aggregators  are defending.

I hope that the American Library Association is going to strongly advocate for the interests of libraries in this discussion.

Yet another embarrassment sponsored by the GOP

Elijah Rising is now used by
high schools and colleges as a teaching tool. 
The manuscript was placed in Teaching Tolerance Library of the Southern
Poverty Law Center by Morris Dees under title: Michael’s Journal

ISBN: 978-1935725084
Available from Ingrams, Bella, Smashwords and most distributors.

The mysticism and religious fanaticism of the 1920’s and the
Dust Bowl era has had a profound impact on the arts. Popular TV shows like
HBO’s Carnivale have brought this
strange time period into the mainstream. These were years marked by war, a
global depression, racial hostility, and a collective search for salvation. In
author Lyn LeJeune’s new book, Elijah Rising (inGroup Press, October 2011), a
man’s descent into madness begins as the world goes to war. Disillusioned with
his boring life in New York City, a wealthy white heir to a railroad fortune
follows a black tent-fundamentalist preacher out west. Their goal is to bring
God to those uncivilized and uncharted parts of America. But as they venture
deeper into the unknown, it is they who may most require the grace of God.
Elijah Rising is a love story filled with captivating descriptive writing,
profound characters, and a learned sense of history. LeJeune has written
timeless, high-end fiction for even the most discerning tastes.

  JP Souza Publicity,
inGroup  Press T: (773) 599-0337E-Mail:
JP@inGroupPress.com Web: http://www.inGroupPress.com

***Note from
author: Howard Zinn – greatly missed
– was one of my first readers.  He wrote
this to me:  “I read it in two sittings,
became involved in the story. You write every well!”  Now who wouldn’t have pursued the book to
publication? It is now published by InGroup Press.

Open Access is the practice of providing unrestricted access via the Internet to peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles.

Open Access is also increasingly being provided to theses, scholarly monographs and book chapters.

Open Access comes in two degrees: Gratis Open Access is no-cost online access, while Libre Open Access is Gratis Open Access

plus some additional usage rights.

Open content is similar to Open Acces, but usually includes the right to modify the work, where as in scholarly publishing it is

usual to keep an article’s content intact and to associate it with a fixed author or fixed group of authors. Creative Commons

licenses can be used to specify usage rights. The Open Access idea can also be extended to the learning objects and resources

provided in e-learning.

OMICS Group Inc. is one of the Open aceess publisher which provides journals in the form of Open Access.

omicsonline.org/OpenAccess.php