Re: potential positive spiral in transition to open access

["Joseph Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

For those of us for whom English is our native language, we may 
choose a generous interpretation of the word "ghetto" to mean an 
area cut off from ready intercourse.  Toll-access publications 
can be considered such.  Outside the world of toll-access 
publications is another world of informal communications, which 
includes many Open Access publishing initiatives.  I may disagree 
with Mr. Szczepanski's vision of where publishing is headed, but 
I want to thank him for his willingness to try to communicate 
with me in my own language.  I could not hope to reciprocate.

Joe Esposito

On 7/1/07, Peter Banks <pbanks@bankspub.com> wrote:
> "The commercial-STM-ghetto"? Even the incendiary Richard Smith
> would not, I hope, be so thoughtless as to compare STM publishers
> with the Judengasse. Equating STM publishers and the brutal
> confinement of Jews over the centuries leading to the Nazi era
> is, to put it mildly, grossly offensive.
>
> In any case, it will be very interesting to see whether your
> proposed growth of non-STM OA publishing will be sustained. Right
> now, "spasmodic" is an accurate term to describe much of the OA
> STM publishing world. That might be perfectly adequate--many of
> the journals in the DOAJ are of regional or local interest, and
> there may be no need for regular publication.
>
> If the emphasis as been on STM, it is because that has been the
> focus of public policy on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US,
> OA has been sold on Capitol Hill as a kind of alchemy which can
> somehow overcome the disastrously anemic state of NIH funding
> (for which, thanks to Mr. Bush's and Mr. Blair's very costly
> little adventure, no solution is in sight.)
>
> Peter Banks
> pbanks@bankspub.com