Letters to the Editor

Science publishers get stupid Andrew Leonard [2007-01-25]

• Stodgy old and out of touch

  Whereas I think you have every right to denigrate anyone who puts forth that oxy moronic statement, most of these scientific journals are for profit. My understanding is that they most of their money from standard revenue streams such as subscriptions and advertising. Once you remove these sources of money by providing the content free from government sources, how will they make money?

  The problem is that most scientific journals are stodgy, old, and out of touch.

  Well, this is actually not too big of a problem if you change your thinking a bit. As would be expected, computer science (the area I am quite familiar with), with its strong ties to open source, is way ahead of the other sciences here. Most of the big journals do offer their content for free (or at least, they leave the copyright with the authors who can then post it on their website for non-commercial use). The publishers of the journals get most of their income from sponsoring conferences and membership fees. Everyone's happy. The content is largely free, and people are making money.

  -- Andrew
  [Read Andrew's other letters]
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