October 4, 2007

Anti-Open-Access Effort by Publishing Group Loses Another University Press

Another top university press has registered its displeasure with Prism, a controversial anti-open-access lobbying effort undertaken by the Association of American Publishers. Ellen Faran, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, has resigned from the executive council of the association’s Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division. Even so, Ms. Faran told The Chronicle in an e-mail message, “The Prism Web site continues to give the incorrect impression that it has the unanimous support of the Executive Council.”

The Web site states that Prism, or the Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine, “was established by the Executive Council of the Professional & Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) to educate policy makers and the American people about the risks posed by government intervention in scholarly publishing.” The group has made some language changes elsewhere on the site since the first round of publishers’ protests.

Ms. Faran’s exit from the executive council follows that of James D. Jordan, president and director of Columbia University Press, who stepped down on August 28, five days after Prism went public. Mr. Jordan told The Chronicle that he had resigned in part “because I had vocally opposed the launch of the Prism Web site and did not subscribe to arguments supporting it.” Other academic publishers, including Cambridge University Press and Rockefeller University Press, have also publicly criticized Prism. —Jennifer Howard

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