The Final Provocation

The Final Provocation
The final provo­ca­tion of the fac­ulty will come when pub­lish­ers start pay­ing for leg­is­la­tion mak­ing insti­tu­tional open access poli­cies and per­sonal “net­worked dis­sem­i­na­tion” of one’s own research ille­gal. That will be the moment when fac­ulty start hear­ing “don’t” from pub­lish­ers, because that will be the moment that pub­lish­ers try to delib­er­ately and pub­licly inter­fere with deci­sions about their insti­tu­tions or their research that the fac­ulty have made them­selves. When or if that time comes, we might finally see wide­spread revolt against the worst abuses of com­mer­cial schol­arly pub­lish­ers. The ques­tion is whether in their drive for prof­its the offen­sive pub­lish­ers will finally be brazen enough to alien­ate the com­mu­nity that pro­vides all their free content.