Well put. I think Science does have some conflict of interest here, but I also think they are one of the good guys in the publishing business, and that this is

Well put. I think Science does have some conflict of interest here, but I also think they are one of the good guys in the publishing business, and that this is a worthwhile subject for an expose. Like you, I get (about 1/week) blind offers to submit articles to this or that journal, and even (at a lesser frequency) offers to be an editor (unpaid!). It stinks to high heaven [1] Getting back to Science, their individual subscription rates are reasonable (~$150/year = 52 issues), their public health articles are available immediately after publication, and their other articles are available after 1 year. They are run by a non-profit institution (AAAS), so they are less motivated to jack up their fees. I was not able to find institutional fees for Science. Incidentally, the situation with Nature is different -- they are for-profit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_Publishing_Group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_Publishing_Group) and it seems to show in their rates: http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/uc-libraries-faculty-protest-proposed-160117.aspx http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/uc-libraries-faculty-protest... [1] Here are the most recent 5: "International Transaction of Electrical and Computer Engineers System" (sounds like a joke), "Entropy", "The Open Software Engineering Journal", "Journal of Robotics", "The Open Electrical & Electronic Engineering Journal".