

Research Bought, Then Paid For: Open Access to Science Under Attack - synparb
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/research-bought-then-paid-for.html

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lutorm
Absurd. I accept that the journals will fight against open access. But it's
bizarre to me that there are members of Congress who apparently think that the
first priority of goverment-funded research is to support a bunch of
businesses.

It reminds me of when then-Senator Santorum proposed a bill that would
prohibit the National Weather Service to disseminate their forecasts for free
as they do now and instead would only sell them to commercial outlets. He
apparently also thinks that the purpose of government is to give money to
corporations.

I generally am a believer in government being a force for good. But stuff like
this taxes this belief.

The funny thing is that you never hear stuff like this happening in Sweden.
The US government is apparently wholly subjugated by corporations. I don't
understand how there isn't more of an uproar about this. You'd think that both
small-goverment libertarian types and "socialists" (in the US use of the word)
would agree that whatever the size of government, it shouldn't be beholden to
commercial interests...

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streptomycin
FWIW, Sweden only implemented their mandate that government-funded
publications be open access _after_ the US NIH did so (2009 in Sweden, 2008 in
the US).

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synparb
The author has had a series of really great blog posts on the subject as well
on his personal site. In particular, check out:

<http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=807>

and make sure to read the comments, which includes a defense of the
legislation by Tom Reller, Elsevier's VP.

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epistasis
For those unfamiliar with scientific publishing, Michael Eisen, the author of
this Op-Ed is the founder of the PLoS series of open access journals, which
are generally considered first-class publications in each of their fields.
Michael Eisen has been leading the way in open access for the past decade.

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PaulHoule
To be fair, there is a dark underside to "open access".

One of the most significant open access publishers creates $100 million+ in
value a year but, 20 years after inception, struggles to find a sustainable
source of just $400,000 a year to fund operations. Few of the 100,000+ regular
users have any idea of the lost opportunities and problems of talent retention
that this site has had.

Perhaps I'm reacting to my most recent experiences with the "free" business
model, but Tom Reller is right to say that what Elsevier does is more
sustainable than most open access.

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cyrus_
Congress should appropriate $400,000 for them, then. Scientific research is
inherently unsustainable if you focus on short-term profits, that's why so
much of it is federally funded.

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PaulHoule
They should but so far they won't.

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zerostar07
Yet even the author publishes regularly in closed-access journals such as
Nature

[http://scholar.google.com/citations?sortby=pubdate&hl=en...](http://scholar.google.com/citations?sortby=pubdate&hl=en&user=z2foFg4AAAAJ&view_op=list_works)

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SeanLuke
I fail to see how that is supposed to be hypocritical. _Nature_ etc. are at
present important venues for publication, particularly in this researcher's
area. Is it hypocritical to agitate strenuously for electric cars while
driving a gas one if it's not realistic to drive all electric in your
situation?

This would only be hypocritical if he were _criticizing_ other researchers for
publishing in non-open journals. But he's not, at least to my reading. He's
_urging_ that they consider other venues. He's only criticizing the
government.

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zerostar07
I didn't call him a hypocrite. Just saying that even the most courageous
supporters of science openness cannot escape the tangles of old publishers.

Btw his latest nature comment is pretty funny:
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7314/full/467401d...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7314/full/467401d.html)

