Academic publishers reap huge profits as libraries go broke

 'Oligarchy' of publishers

5 companies publish more than 50 per cent of research papers, study finds

(53 per cent of scientific papers, 70 per cent of papers in the social sciences)

Larivière says the cost of the University of Montreal's journal subscriptions is now more than $7 million a year  – ultimately paid for by the taxpayers and students who fund most of the university's budget. Unable to afford the annual increases, the university has started cutting subscriptions, angering researchers.
"The big problem is that libraries or institutions that produce knowledge don't have the budget anymore to pay for [access to] what they produce," Larivière said.

 Vincent Larivière, University of Montreal           From: CBC News June 15th 2015 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/

The Oligopoly of Academic Publishers in the Digital Era

Essentially, they've become an oligarchy, Larivière and co-authors Stefanie Haustein and Philippe Mongeon say in a paper published last week in the open access, non-profit journal PLOS ONE.

Joint Australia and Africa research boosts citations

The Australia-Africa Universities Network, which has been running for going on three years with 10 institutions from each of the two regions, already has 16 collaborative research programmes underway in areas such as food security, mining and minerals, public sector reform, public health and education.

Interestingly, research at Murdoch University in Australia has shown that citations per paper with African co-authors is far higher than the university’s average citation per paper.

Article from University World News
Karen MacGregor  29 May 2015 Issue No:369

Resignations threat over Taylor & Francis ‘censorship’

“A journal’s editorial board has been left on the brink ofresignation after an eight-month standoff with its publisher Taylor &Francis over the publication of a debate on academic publishing and the profitsmade by major firms…..”

10 challenges scholarly publishers are facing

By Rick Anderson - Interim Dean, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah
"....I have polled some of my colleagues who work for publishers, vendors,  consultants, and other service providers on the commercial side of the scholarly communication equation. Here, based on the input I received ... are ten of the biggest challenges publishers are currently facing, presented in no particular order...........

 I was interested to see Altmetrics, Open Access and Amzon on the list!  (Eileen)

Embargoes Can Only Go So Far to Help New Ph.D.'s Get Published, Experts Say

From the CHE
 .......editors at two university presses backed away from offering her a book contract for a revised version of her dissertation, which is about urban public hospitals and the care of the poor in Houston in the mid-20th century, upon learning that it was posted online. Some half-dozen other editors voiced interest in her work at scholarly conferences and then said they could not publish a monograph based largely on a dissertation readily available online.
She was forced to shelve efforts to publish a revised version of her dissertation with a university press.......

The Impending Demise of Greedy For-Profit Scientific Publishers (Part I)

The Impending Demise of Greedy For-Profit Scientific Publishers (Part I)

Handbook of Academic Writing for Librarians

ACRL announces the publication of Handbook of Academic Writing for Librarians, written by Christopher V. Hollister of the University at Buffalo.

 

 

The Handbook of Academic Writing for Librarians is the most complete reference source available for librarians who need or desire to publish in the professional literature. The handbook addresses issues and requirements of scholarly writing and publishing in a start-to-finish manner. Standard formats of scholarly writing are addressed: research papers, articles, and books. 

Ditch the Monograph by Jennifer Howard

What if scholars, publishers, and tenure-and-promotion committees embraced short-form e-books as a respectable way to deliver serious scholarship?

Read more

Thanks to Brenda for this interesting Twitter alert!

Articlefrom the Chronicle of Higher Education
Excerpt: “…….. When I referee an article for a journal, it usually takes three to four hours of my time. Recently, two Taylor & Francis journals asked me to review article submissions for them. In each case, I was probably one of 20 to 30 people in the world with the expert knowledge to judge whether the articles cited the relevant literature, represented it accurately, addressed important issues in the field, and made an original contribution to knowledge.
If you wanted to know whether that spot on your lung in the X-ray required an operation, whether the deed to the house you were purchasing had been recorded properly, or whether the chimney on your house was in danger of collapsing, you would be willing to pay a hefty fee to specialists who had spent many years acquiring the relevant expertise. Taylor & Francis, however, thinks I should be paid nothing for my expert judgment and for four hours of my time.
So why not try this: If academic work is to be commodified and turned into a source of profit for shareholders and for the 1 percent of the publishing world, then we should give up our archaic notions of unpaid craft labor and insist on professional compensation for our expertise, just as doctors, lawyers, and accountants do.
This does not mean we would never referee articles free. Just as the lawyer who is my neighbor bills corporate clients a hefty fee but represents prisoners in Guantánamo pro bono, so academics could referee without charge for nonprofit presses but insist on professional rates of compensation from for-profit publishers that expect us to donate our labor while paying mansion salaries [over $US 1 million/annum] to their chief executives and top managers….”

Open access will bankrupt us, publishers’ report claims

Publishers of humanities and social science journals could go bankrupt if all academic papers became freely available after six months, a report commissioned by publishers has warned.

Really! Read Steve Harnad's comments : (BANKRUPTCY BALDERDASH: THE PUBLISHER TAIL AGAIN TRYING TO WAG THE RESEARCH DOG)

Coercive Citation in Academic Publishing

When Journal Editors Coerce Authors to Self-Cite. Elsevier is the publisher of 4 of the top 5 journal offenders!

(More) The world of university research has long been held to ransom by academic publishers

Academic publishing doesn't add upThe world of university research has long been held to ransom by academic publishers charging exorbitant prices for subscriptions – but that may all be about to end

An unlikely hero!