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Peter has been getting rather agitated about Open Access and a publishing industry response — which demonstrates that it really is all about the money for the publishers.
I was going to weigh in and be scathing and witty, but I have a headache and I see that Alethea has beaten me to it, by linking to a wonderfully surreal piss-take.
All your base are belong to us
The BioLOG is back, bigger and bad to the bone
LabLit
From the blurb: LabLit.com is dedicated to real laboratory culture and to the portrayal and perceptions of that culture – science, scientists and labs – in fiction, the media and across popular cultur
Mind the Gap
Adventures in the London sci-lit-art scene...and occasionally beyond
Humans in Science
Similar to 'Lab Rats', a very human look at the process of doing science and how daily life impacts our profession
The Daily Grind
Jonathan Sanderson, a TV producer interested in making 'popular science' shows
Comments
I can be scathing, but I'm not very good at witty, so give it your best shot. Thanks for giving this coverage. I'm also a little outraged, as an American, that these people (Prism and the Business folks) are making this into an American Big Government issue just to get the wrong people worked up. Remind you of embryonic stem cells, anyone?
Posted by: Alethea | September 6, 2007 04:46 PM
Due to unknown reasons I can't post on Alethea's blog. You my friend (BK) get this comment since I thought I needed to say something regarding the whole thing. ;)
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hmm... I tried to leave a comment here yesterday, got called spam and although I assumed spam was not based on what I wrote I tried to rewrite - but nothing...
Anyway, the whole idea of paying to get published turns my stomach since I think it is, especially if you have a PUBLIC grant, part of your research to show others what you have accomplished. I realise that it also means I am for open access... Maybe this is one of those "it is not fair" in the sense that it is the same price for everyone but it differs if you are in a PUBLIC institute where you have access to several journals for free rather than being in a privat institute. Or maybe that thought is a harsh and fast one??
I dunno, I just know that I find it disturbing to pay a journal to publish since that in the other world of publishing it goes the other way, i.e. authors get paid to publish interesting articles. Actually, that might be as scary if implemented in science, wouldn't it? Journals picking out scientists who do interesting work and paying them for publishing their work?
Ah, I need some morning coffee in order to think straight, but I got worked up (a little anyway.)
Posted by: chall | September 7, 2007 01:16 AM
Yeah, Alethea's blog is broken - not her fault, I should add!
You're right - something is broken. We get paid with public money, we have to pay to publish and people have to pay to read it. So our funders pay twice to find out what we did. Hmm.
Publishers only pay for work because they make a profit on what they sell, so that model, unfortunately, won't work!
Posted by: BK | September 7, 2007 08:19 AM