Tom Roper's Weblog

LRB: replies to John Sutherland

Two letters in the new London Review of Books reply to John Sutherland's piece which I mentioned in this blog two weeks ago..
Jonathan Sawday suggests that 2% of the Arts and Humanities Research Board budget be set aside to support a peer-reviewed AHRB imprint, while Jon Price suggests institutional self-archiving.

More on HoCS&T Committee inquiry

The ALPSP has posted its web site a copy of its written testimony to the UK House of Commons committee conducting the inquiry into journal prices and accessibility.

SHERPA project

Enabling access to institutional repositories

BMJ reports that a journal rejected article after objections from

"A leading nephrology journal has rejected a guest editorial questioning the efficacy of epoetin in end stage renal disease, despite favourable peer reviews, apparently because it feared losing advertising."

Journal rejects article after objections from marketing department
Owen Dyer
BMJ 2004;328:244

PNAS on e-journals

An article in PNAS discusses the economics of e-journals and site licences and consequent effects on the scientific community.
Carl T. Bergstrom, and Theodore C. Bergstrom
The costs and benefits of library site licenses to academic journals
PNAS 101: 897-902; published online before print as 10.1073/pnas.0305628101

LRB: John Sutherland on publishing

John Sutherland writes the diary in the latest London Review of Books , which he devotes to a discussion of publishing. His remarks were inspired by a letter to all his members from last year's President of the Modern Languages Association (for me and other medical librarians the "other" MLA...those initals evoke the Medical Library Association for us). So while what he has to say is chiefly about monographs in the humanties, it has much interest for the growing debate on scientific publishing. His final suggestion is that every university teacher should be given $200 in book tokens redeemable against the publications any of the top fifty academic presses, this being sufficient to revive academic publishing.
Suerland has some interesting things to say about changes in publishing and their effect on libraries, but he seems to underestimate the potential of institutional archiving and other new ways of publishing have to solve the problem. He claims that quality control has been "almost impossible to apply to web generated scholarship" something that those who edit and contribute to many peer-reviewed electronic publications would contest.
Sutherland, John
Diary
London Review of Books 26 (2); 31 22 January 2004

Letters in THES on open archiving

Today's THES carries two letters continuing the debate on open access, one from Fred Friend rebutting the assertion that open access will censor publication according to ability to pay, and the other suggesting that learned societies might need to charge higher submission fees than other publishers. Full text is only available to subscribers but the paper reference is:
THES 2004 1623: 17 (January 16)

Letters on open access in THES

Today's THES carries two letters continuing the debate on open access, one from Fred Friend rebutting the assertion that open access will censor publication according to ability to pay, and the other suggesting that learned societies might need to charge higher submission fees than other publishers. Full text is only available to subscribers but the paper reference is:
THES 2004 1623: 17 (January 16)

CILIP evidence to House of Commons Science and Technology Committee

Discussion on the Jiscmail lis-cilip list suggest that CILIP will be submitting evidence to the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee enquiry , which is good. The Health Libraries Group has also undertaken to submit evidence. The more the merrier, I say

US Universities cancel "big deals'

The BMJ reports that three US university libraries are cancelling "big deal" journal subscriptions with Elsevier. Harvard is cancelling a bundled package of Elsevier journals, and Cornell also announced last month it would not renew a package of more than 900 titles. Stanford is considering a draft resolution on journal bundling and will make a decision in February.
BMJ 2004; 328: 68 (10 January)