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I worked in the scientific publishing industry. Not directly for Elsevier, but we had dealings with them too. Many people here view Elsevier as this evil nebul

by Radim 8y ago

I worked in the scientific publishing industry. Not directly for Elsevier, but we had dealings with them too. Many people here view Elsevier as this evil nebulous entity. Leaving "evil" aside, like every large business, Elsevier is composed to people, some of them very smart. Which is to say Elsevier has seen this "open access" movement coming for a better part of a decade now, just like everyone else. As far back as 2011 the industry has been inventing ways to make "open access" as profitable as the current system (ideally, even more). Green open access, gold open access, diamond and hybrid; moving walls, paywalls, article processing charges… Having seen the sausage made, I guess I'm a little cynical about "open access". I see it devoid of the idealistic "stick it to the man" connotations, and more like another feel-good buzzword scam.

petepete 8y ago
> As far back as 2011 the industry has been inventing ways to make "open access" as profitable as the current system If that's what they were doing, nothing could better demonstrate that they missed the point entirely and misunderstand the word 'open'.
mijamo 8y ago
Many companies fell despite having many smart people working for them. I would say every semi-big company probably has many smart people working for them. That does not prevent them from doing very stupid/bad/evil things, and sometimes disappearing. The fact that they anticipated the move does not mean anything regarding their future, just like Kodak with digital photography for instance. Taken differently, maybe you see a tsunami coming from very far away and are able to even calculate how strong it is and when it will come, but that does not mean you will be able to save your house in the seafront ;)
- Radim 8y ago
  Sure. My point was not only did Elsevier see the "tsunami" coming, they also prepared for it profusely. Using a combination of legislation, regulation, lobbying and technology. Obviously any company can fail. I'm just offering a little inside information that pushes back against the notion that Elsevier is a static, dumb, backward-facing entity, taken completely by surprise by this new-fangled thing called "open access". Not the case.
black6 8y ago
It’s irritating when a journal article from 1933 is behind a £42.50 paywall. <idealism>Information, especially science, should be free and open to the public.</idealism>
rjsw 8y ago
> Which is to say Elsevier has seen this "open access" movement coming for a better part of a decade now A lot earlier than that, I was discussing the options for online publishing with the then CTO of Elsevier in 1987.
- Radim 8y ago
  Online publishing is a different concept than open access. Elsevier has had a very strong online publishing platform for quite a while now (including SRU interfaces for federated article search, which we integrated too). If you were involved in that effort, my belated thanks :-)

by Radim 8y ago

petepete 8y ago

> As far back as 2011 the industry has been inventing ways to make "open access" as profitable as the current system If that's what they were doing, nothing could better demonstrate that they missed the point entirely and misunderstand the word 'open'.

mijamo 8y ago

Many companies fell despite having many smart people working for them. I would say every semi-big company probably has many smart people working for them. That does not prevent them from doing very stupid/bad/evil things, and sometimes disappearing. The fact that they anticipated the move does not mean anything regarding their future, just like Kodak with digital photography for instance. Taken differently, maybe you see a tsunami coming from very far away and are able to even calculate how strong it is and when it will come, but that does not mean you will be able to save your house in the seafront ;)

Radim 8y ago
Sure. My point was not only did Elsevier see the "tsunami" coming, they also prepared for it profusely. Using a combination of legislation, regulation, lobbying and technology. Obviously any company can fail. I'm just offering a little inside information that pushes back against the notion that Elsevier is a static, dumb, backward-facing entity, taken completely by surprise by this new-fangled thing called "open access". Not the case.

black6 8y ago

It’s irritating when a journal article from 1933 is behind a £42.50 paywall. <idealism>Information, especially science, should be free and open to the public.</idealism>

rjsw 8y ago

> Which is to say Elsevier has seen this "open access" movement coming for a better part of a decade now A lot earlier than that, I was discussing the options for online publishing with the then CTO of Elsevier in 1987.

Radim 8y ago
Online publishing is a different concept than open access. Elsevier has had a very strong online publishing platform for quite a while now (including SRU interfaces for federated article search, which we integrated too). If you were involved in that effort, my belated thanks :-)