RE: Publishers and the doctrine of Good Works

["Lisa Dittrich" <lrdittrich@aamc.org>]

I will admit to not being a publishing house insider, although I 
know a few--and it sounds like we're all working w/anecdotal 
information, so what the heck.

I think most journal publishers are simply trying to keep their 
own journals alive and thriving, and to develop new journals (or 
bring new ones in the fold).  This takes up enough time and 
energy.  No one is out trying to undermine in some evil Enron way 
other folks' journals (in the way that, say, the folks at PLoS 
are doing through their badmouthing campaigns!).  And by keeping 
their journals alive, I don't mean anything underhanded--I mean 
the usual promotion campaigns, site license sales, etc.  Some of 
that may be a bit cutthroat--if you buy one company's package of 
journals, it may limit what you can afford of another 
company's--but that just seems like normal business.

I am as open as anyone to distrusting corporate America, and it's 
not that I'm unwilling to believe that publishers can be venal, 
but in the narrow arena of scholarly publishing I just don't see 
evidence of publishers trying to crush the competition.  Buy it 
out, maybe, but not crush it.  I hardly think LWW needs to worry 
that journals like Contact Dermatatis or The Laryngoscope are 
going to be undone somehow by Elsevier or Blackwell secretly 
tunneling into corporate headquarters.

Lisa

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph Esposito
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 8:26 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Publishers and the doctrine of Good Works

Peter, I am sure you are accurately describing your own view, but 
I must say I do not believe your remarks are representative of 
publishers.  Or if they are, people have been lying to me.  OF 
COURSE, publishers are trying to restrain the growth of other 
journals.  That is their job, to outfox the competition.  To put 
this another way, if they were not doing this, they would be 
fired.  You can't have it both ways; you can't send Jeff Skilling 
and Ken Lay to jail (or worse) on one hand for abusing 
shareholders and then turn around and say that the management of 
a company should embrace a free, open, and diverse market, which 
is not in the interest of their shareholders.  As John D. 
Rockefeller noted, companies wish to avoid "ruinous competition." 
It is simply not true that "we all want more access to 
information."  An economic enterprise has narrow aims; if it 
changes the world for the better, it is because it profits from 
it.  I love capitalism, but let's not get sentimental about it. 
It is what it is:  a vibrant, creative force that has a limited 
view of the world.  To get a complete view we need a pluralistic 
environment.

And, yes, I agree that the less formal kinds of OA can not give 
us the equivalent of the New England Journal of Medicine, nor 
have I ever even hinted that I felt otherwise.  OA is mostly a 
distraction.

Joe Esposito

On 7/18/06, Peter Banks <pbanks@bankspub.com> wrote:
> 
> I have considered your argument for days now, and I really don't know
> what publisher argument this is reacting to or what high horse any
> publisher is supposed to have ridden in on.
> 
> No publisher, not even the staunchest defender of traditional 
> business models, is trying to restrain the growth of other 
> journals or of scientific communication. The DC Principles 
> explicitly welcome new models of publishing and new journals. 
> The more publishing models being tested in the laboratory of 
> the real world, the better. Whatever our perspective on OA, we 
> all want more access to information--which I hope is the goal, 
> rather than a lowering of quality, as you of phrased it. 
> (Heaven help us if we are collectively engaged in a crusade for 
> the further spread of mediocrity.)
> 
> What publishers object to is the idea that one can produce, 
> say, the New England Journal of Medicine, using some of the 
> less formal models of OA. Those models may be absolutely fine 
> for many fields. And there may be entirely new models--maybe 
> scientific communities based on MySpace or Blogger or text 
> messaging. I don't pretend to know, any more than I understand 
> my teenagers' media choices.
> 
> The argument is NOT that the New England Journal's model for 
> ensuring quality must be followed everywhere, even if it means 
> restricting access to information. The argument is that the 
> NEJM's systems and procedures have great value for medicine, 
> and one should not so condescendingly dismiss their value. If 
> anything, given the savage press NEJM has received recently in 
> the Wall Street Journal, it may need even more rigorous and 
> costly quality assurance procedures; the popular press seems to 
> feel that the journal editors are responsible for reviewing not 
> only the data that was submitted, but also the data that was 
> NOT submitted. I suppose telepathic systems for detecting an 
> author's integrity will be required.
> 
> Peter Banks
> Banks Publishing
> Publications Consulting and Services
> Fairfax, VA 22030
> pbanks@bankspub.com