A campaign organized under The Cost of Knowledge banner has thousands of scholars agreeing to boycott Elsevier publications by refusing to submit or to review articles for any of their journals. Since Jan 21, when Tim Gowers at Cambridge University blogged about what he saw as the unfair economic practices of the publisher, the campaign has grown quickly. In this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education the publisher argues that they really add value to the whole knowledge distribution chain but it’s hard to have sympathy when they acknowledge indulging in price gouging during for a couple of decades before claiming “we got it wrong then…but we’ve become good citizens”.
Blaming library budgets for not keeping up is a curious tactic here but the reality is that academics are slow to organize alternative publishing options. Yes, scholars provide the raw material of research and reviewing, and are ultimately the arbiters of quality, but the record needs to be managed, maintained and organized for use if it is to work. I think someone should create a new role for people who do that 🙂