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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I would just like to register my
agreement with everything that Nora M writes. There are publishers
and publishers. Even among commercial publishers there are
companies that treat their authors well and that play a crucial
role in maintaining academic standards through peer review,
effective copy editing and so on. And let's not forget marketing .
. . I firmly believe that there is a special place in heaven for
editors and copy editors - a place where there are no typos,
spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. Or complaining authors.<br>
<br>
But commercial publishers are not immune from the pressures of the
market. I wrote a textbook back in the 80s which is still
appearing in new editions, but the company publishing it has
changed hands through takeovers 5 times. And the role of predatory
commercial publishers that, following the lead of Robert Maxwell
in Britain in the 60s and 70s, bought up important peer-reviewed
journals and then jacked up the price to what the market would
take (and more) should not be ignored. 30 years ago I think that
the average British academic library spent 80% plus of its money
on books. I think that it is now under 20%. Cartels of publishers
won't allow university libraries to subscribe to individual
journals: you either subscribe to a full list, or no deal. And
once libraries have subscribed to very expensive journals in
medicine, technology and hard science there is not much left for
the humanities.<br>
<br>
Against this backdrop the role of university presses is even more
crucial than it was in the past, In the US more such presses have
survived; in the UK there are few left. Their importance should be
recognised and their position defended.<br>
<br>
Jeremy H<br>
<br>
<br>
On 25.11.2014 21:20, Nora Malone wrote:<br>
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<div>For what it's worth, a little perspective from the other
side of the aisle. I work as professional editor (not a
faculty member, but paid staff) at a large university press in
the US, and have spent my career in publishing. I edit an
academic journal in the social sciences (not open access).<br>
<br>
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<div>First, I would just like to emphasize that publishing costs
money, even if it happens online. There seems to be this myth
that if you remove paper from the equation, all of the other
costs associated with publishing will magically vanish, but
that is simply not true. Open access journals still have costs
(hosting a website, maintaining a website, updating a website,
communicating with authors and reviewers if they use them,
probably some minimal permissions and fact-checking work),
most of which get pushed to authors. Some get pushed to
authors in an obvious way through the publication fee that
authors must pay, and others get pushed to authors in less
obvious ways (for example, the need to solicit a professional
copy editor yourself if the journal doesn't provide one, or, I
suppose, the converse cost of risking having typos and
grammatical errors in work published under your name). <br>
<br>
</div>
<div>I would also question the motivation of a journal with a
financial model based on author fees. It would seem to me
that, in order to make money, the journal would want to
publish as many articles as possible without paying much
regard to their quality. Contrast that with a traditional
subscription model, which motivates a journal to publish only
the best articles in order to maintain and build its
subscription base. Sometimes, the decisions a traditional
journal makes might mean that good articles never see the
light of day, perhaps because they would only appeal to a very
small number of scholars or because they don't have big-name
authors. But most of the time, I would argue, traditional
journals are just aiming to provide readers with the very best
scholarship, whether by rejecting articles that don't do much
to advance knowledge or by helping authors of promising but
problematic articles to undergo rigorous revisions.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>The call to make scholarship available to students and
researchers at all universities, not just those who can afford
it, is an important moral imperative. But, given the tight
margins that most traditional publishers are dealing with, I
worry that open access journals will undercut traditional
publishing to the point of near-extinction. In fact, in the
US, many university presses have already been shut down. I
would urge you all to keep in mind the role that university
presses like Oxford University Press and the University of
Chicago have played in professionalizing editorial work and
establishing and maintaining editorial standards that reach
far beyond academic publishing. I think, for example, of the
editors at the University of Chicago Press whose day-to-day
work serves as the basis for their regular updates to the
Chicago Manual of Style (one of the most commonly used guides
for writing and editing in the US). What happens to the state
of written communication if those editors lose their jobs? If
we stop paying for editorial work, will professional editors
cease to exist? I would argue that, if people feel that
traditional journals have higher standards than open access
journals, it is because, at least for now, they mostly do.
(Something like this, for example, could never happen at a
traditional journal: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/11/24/scientific-paper-of-the-day/">http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/11/24/scientific-paper-of-the-day/</a>)
So how much are we willing to satisfice on the quality of
writing, layout, and rhetoric in order to make scholarship
more freely available (or how much will we be forced to by
budgetary constraints)? Or is there a way for open access
journals to exist alongside traditional journals without
financially undercutting them? I will be interested to see
what the new ruling in the UK means for traditional
publishing.<br>
<br>
Nora <br>
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