Indeed, Academia.edu, PLOS, and Arxiv.org are doing something remarkable: They’re mounting a full-frontal assault on a multi-billion-dollar industry and replacing it with something that makes much, much less money.
They’re far more efficient and fairer, and they vastly increase the openness and availability of research information. I believe this will be nothing but good for the human race in the long run. But I’m sure the executives of Elsevier, Springer, and others are weeping into their lattes as they watch this industry evaporate.
Maybe they can get together with newspaper executives to commiserate.
Dec 18, 1995
Significance of the date – Dec 18, 1995? An article ran in Forbes titled “The Internet’s First Victim”
Highlight of article: Cost cutting librarians and computer-literate professors are bypassing academic journals — bad news for Reed Elsevier
Well roughly 18 years later and Reed Elsevier is still around. Web is now older and maybe there are new mechanisms in place (ubiquitous tablets and internet access, etc) that will cause the pay publishers to crumble. But maybe there are deeper structural reasons for the publishing landscape. Before you count anyone out of the race these might be considered.
Book
Book to read that exemplifies the idea that the reasons for things happening may not be the ones we think — Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer
Here’s a backgrounder to put the above in context
If you want to talk about visionaries and leaders:
http://anothersb.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-open-accessscience-visionaries.html
Mmmmm
Yeah I’m sure that Elsevier et al are weeping at getting the $6000 an article open access fees from the likes of Wellcome.
It’s great there are alternatives and even if universities aren’t being rated on where they publish there is still the point that some titles are better than others. That impact factors still mean something and peer review by certain editorial boards mean more than others.
Over time things will change but it’s not the same for all subjects, that will happen but it will take time.
And if you move away from Elsevier etc? There are plenty of other people, especially in Asia, who are happy to take your place.