<mailto:lyleallan99@gmail.com>>:
Elsevier Withdraws From Attempt to Stop Free Publication of
Scientific Materials
http://the-scientist.com/2012/02/28/elsevier-abandons-anti-open-access-bill/
The publishing giant withdraws its support of the Research Works
Act, which would eliminate open-access requirements on federally
funded work.
By Bob Grant | February 28, 2012
Publishing company Elsevier has backpedalled on its support of the
Research Works Act (RWA), a bill that proposes to stop federal
agencies from requiring that their grantees deposit federally funded
research findings in open access databases.
Elsevier, which publishes a slew of highly cited science journals
such as The Lancet and the Cell series, said in a
<http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/intro.cws_home/newmessagerwa>
statement yesterday that it decided to cease rallying for the
legislation after hearing from "Elsevier journal authors, editors
and reviewers who were concerned that the Act seemed inconsistent
with Elsevier's long-standing support for expanding options for free
and low-cost public access to scholarly literature."
US Representatives Darrel Issa (R-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)
introduced the RWA into the House of Representatives last December,
and the Association of American Publishers, a trade group to which
Elsevier and many other journal publishers belong, contributed
heavily to drawing up the bill.
Elsevier had been staunch supporters of the RWA, which would have
rolled back the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy-a
mandate that any published research that was funded by the federal
science agency be submitted to the publically accessible digital
archive PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication.
But in January, renowned Cambridge University mathematician
<http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~wtg10/
<http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/%7Ewtg10/>> Timothy Gowers sparked a
boycott of the publisher based on criticism involving the company's
business practices and its support of the RWA. By early February,
some 5,000 academics had signed on to the boycott, and as of this
writing, more than 2,500 additional researchers have added their
names to that list.
Tom Reller, an Elsevier spokesperson, told The Scientist that the
company still opposes rigid government mandates regarding science
publishing but hopes that withdrawing support of the RWA will quell
some of the complaints the company had heard. "We don't necessarily
think this is going to end the boycott or anything," he said, "but
hopefully this helps everything calm down a little bit so we can get
back to having a dialogue with funding bodies, both nonprofit and
government."
But some boycotters aren't changing their positions based on
Elsevier's latest move. University of North Carolina theoretical
biology PhD student <http://adamsonj.ninth.su/> Joel Adamson said
that the company's decision was welcomed, but that it didn't go far
enough to deter his support for the boycott. "Within the realm of
those kinds of solutions, it is a good thing, but it still doesn't
go all the way toward what I would call a real solution to the
problem," he said. "It shows me that they are a predictable
corporation; in other words that they're capable of being scared
that something might affect their profits." Adamson added that if
Elsevier would abandon "bundling practices," in which the company
allegedly groups desirable science journals with less-august titles
in package deals for university libraries, it would go further
towards changing his mind.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine geneticist
<http://www.einstein.yu.edu/home/faculty/profile.asp?id=12213> Brett
Abrahams said that he considers the decision a token gesture that
means little in light of what he sees as Elsevier placing "the
burden of the publication cost on the funders and on the public."
"They're still anti open-access," Abrahams said of Elsevier.
"They've just taken a very far reaching outrageous position and
backed off it a little bit."
Judging from Elsevier's statement announcing their withdrawal of
support for the RWA, the company will continue to support similar
legislation and oppose other open-access efforts, such as the
recently introduced Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) of
2012, which would mandate federal agencies with extramural research
budgets more than $100 million to allow public online access to
taxpayer-funded research. "While withdrawing support for the
Research Works Act, we will continue to join with those many other
nonprofit and commercial publishers and scholarly societies that
oppose repeated efforts to extend mandates through legislation," the
Elsevier statement read. "I was amazed that they still continue to
defend the merits of the RWA," Abrahams added.
But Elsevier could make changes that would bring Abrahams back
into the fold, the researcher said. "If Elsevier wants to drop their
pricing 75 percent across the board, and provide open access for
everything, I'll sing and dance for them."
Source: TheScientist
http://the-scientist.com/2012/02/28/elsevier-abandons-anti-open-access-bill/
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