Re: Interview with Springer's Derk Haank

[Sandy Thatcher <sandy.thatcher@alumni.princeton.edu>]

I find this comment rather astonishing:

>On whether there is a structural problem in the scholarly 
>publishing market, and the likelihood that the research 
>community might at some point no longer be able to afford to 
>keep paying publishers' prices:
>
>"I don't believe there is a structural problem, and things will 
>not fall apart. There are always countervailing forces. I don't 
>believe that our pricing is a big problem, and I am sure that 
>this market can carry on indefinitely. As I say, I accept that 
>there was once a problem. But today, we can't give libraries 
>access to any more journals because they already have access to 
>all they could ever want."

I would be interesting in knowing whether there are ANY 
librarians who would agree with this statement, and the one 
earlier in the interview where Haank says: "The Big Deal is the 
best invention since sliced bread."

I suppose a CEO is paid to be optimistic, though...

Sandy Thatcher


>An interview with Derk Haank, CEO of Springer Science+Business 
>Media has been published in the January issue of Information 
>Today.
>
>More here:
>http://poynder.blogspot.com/2011/01/interview-with-springers-derk-haank.html