RE: science_publishers

[Marta Bunge <martabunge@hotmail.com>]

Dear Eduardo, 


The problem is well known, and there has been much protest in academic circles - so far as I know, to no avail. Rich institutions can certainly afford to subscribe electronically to most journals, but the fees are too high for universities and research centers in countries with a weak currencies or without support from their administrations. 
Some academics (for instance some mathematicians) are currently abstaining from publishing in such journals. However, the problems with this are, first, that scientific publishers could not care less and, second, that it is still a measure of success by grant giving agencies to have published in such journals and, in turn, a measure for promotion considerations. 
Solutions? One could try to change that attitude (say in Canada with NSERC, in Argentina with CONICET, etc) and, at the same time, request a reduction (say, from Academic Press, Springer, etc) for those institutions which cannot pay the fees. Perhaps all of this has been at least attempted. 
In any case, the case still stands and it is important to remind us that it is.
Regards from Buenos Aires,Marta
************************************************
Marta Bunge
Professor Emerita
Dept of Mathematics and Statistics 
McGill UniversityMontreal, QC, Canada H3A 2K6Home: (514) 935-3618
marta.bunge@mcgill.ca 
http://www.math.mcgill.ca/~bunge/
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> Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 15:48:59 -0300
> From: edubuc@dm.uba.ar
> To: categories@mta.ca
> Subject: categories: science_publishers
> 
> Just thought some in the list may not be aware.  Greetings  e.d.
> 
> ===============================================================
> Von: David Mumford [mailto:dbmumford@gmail.com]
> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 31. August 2011 18:11
> An: Caroline Series; Rob Kirby; Don McClure; Peter J Olver; Martin
> Groetschel; John Ball; Ingrid Daubechies; Jeremy Mumford;
> notices@math.wustl.edu; vicente.munoz@mat.ucm.es; Peter Michor
> Betreff: Fwd: Elsevier
> 
> 
> 
> Dear Friends,
> 
> My son sent me the link below to a very strong and very clear article in
> the Guardian about the huge fees charged by technical publishers for
> access to journals. It represents how I have felt for a long time, how
> the math community among others is being outrageously exploited. I feel
> it ought to galvanize scientists/mathematicians to react and would like
> to suggest reprinting it in e.g. the Notices of the AMS, the Newsletter
> of the EMS, the news email from the IMU, etc. The simple response for
> mathematicians is to cease submitting any papers to Elsevier or Springer
> journals. (Excuse me but I am sending this to a somewhat random sample
> of people that occurred to me and whose email address I had -- eg I
> don't have an address for Ewing or Friedlander.)
> 
> yrs faithfully,
> 
> David
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist
> =================================================================
> 
> 
> 
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