Scholarly Publishing: Where is Plan B?
Richard Poynder,
Shut,
Mar 01, 2012
Summary of Elsevier's recent support for the controversial US Research Works Act (RWA), the fallout (including a substantial Elsevier boycott) and speculations about where the publisher will turn next. All this animosity, writes the author, obscures the underlying problem: "What is the underlying problem? Simply that the research community can no longer afford to pay the costs of publishing its research in the traditional manner." So what will keep the publishers relevant? In a word: peer review. So says Claudio Aspesi, a senior research analyst at the sell-side research firm Sanford Bernstein. Aspesi tracks Elsevier for investors. "I doubt the academic community is — by and large — ready to abandon peer review. If this happened, of course, then the role of journals would be further diminished, but I would not expect that to happen any time soon."
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