Big scientific publishers' anti-open-networks campaign exposed

John Mark Ockerbloom says,

Nature published an article yesterday about big scholarly publishers meeting with a PR firm to propagandize against open access. The report has to be read to be believed, but here's a sample that gives a good picture of the type and degree of spin proposed:

From e-mails passed to Nature, it seems Dezenhall spoke to employees from Elsevier, Wiley and the American Chemical Society at a meeting arranged last July by the Association of American Publishers (AAP). A follow-up message in which Dezenhall suggests a strategy for the publishers provides some insight into the approach they are considering taking.

The consultant advised them to focus on simple messages, such as "Public access equals government censorship". He hinted that the publishers should attempt to equate traditional publishing models with peer review, and "paint a picture of what the world would look like without peer-reviewed articles".

[...] In an enthusiastic e-mail sent to colleagues after the meeting, Susan Spilka, Wiley's director of corporate communications, said Dezenhall explained that publishers had acted too defensively on the free-information issue and worried too much about making precise statements. Dezenhall noted that if the other side is on the defensive, it doesn't matter if they can discredit your statements, she added: "Media messaging is not the same as intellectual debate".

Link

Reader comment: Laust says,

The NIH which is the world's leading funder of medical research actually has a pretty OK open access policy, which is beginning to have an effect on many of the journals in the medical field (...which happens to be my area) because they have to provide open access (I think): Link

Andrew Cantine says:

I'm a manuscript coordinator for the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, an American Psychological Association publication. This is a pretty big deal, for instance, we (Abnormal) can't publish any articles funded by the Wellcome Trust (an important source for research funding in the UK) because the Wellcome Trust says the APA needs to deposit published material(like PubMed) funded by the WT within a 6 month time frame. However, the APA subscribes to the NIH's policy of depositing articles within 11.5 months of publication. So, not only do we miss out on potentially important research, we reject any manuscripts funded by the WT out of hand because we'd never be able to publish them.

Tom says,

The head of the Association of American Publishers for the last ten years has been Pat Schroeder--yes, the same Pat Schroeder who was known as a progressive in the House of Representatives for 24 years is now Big Publishing's favorite lobbyist. Once a friend to librarians, she now treats them, with their advocacy of fair use, as the enemy (Link), and the feeling is mutual. Link.

[#1 posted by Anonymous , November 9, 2008 1:24 AM]

Tax payers need open access to research that they funded. So what if open access causes some to lose profits, the whole idea behind open competition is to increase production and make things available at a lower price. We should spend less time worrying about the profits of special interest groups and we should spend more time worrying about the welfare of the American people. I'm sick and tired of lobbying that favors the profits of special interest groups trying to disguise itself as being in favor of the American people. It's all lies and the American people need to wake up. Open access hasn't reduced research, it only distributed it more and cost special interest groups profits.