Re: re virtual library
Posted by
Pamela McCorduck on
Apr 21, 2012; 12:17am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Re-re-virtual-library-tp7485313p7486118.html
Owen, haven't sold enough via Kindle to tell. I was stunned--somebody informed me on FB--that Machines Who Think sells for thirty bucks on Kindle! That seems to me a good way of making sure none gets sold.
Pamela: some of your books come in Kindle versions. Do you have any insights about whether or not digital books work out well for the authors? Has it hurt, for example, via piracy?
-- Owen
Slightly off-topic: in the science and math journals, there is a serious effort to move away from the huge publishers, especially Elsevier and its very large number of journals they've quietly acquired over the last decade or two. This is succeeding, even to the point of peer reviews being managed by the coop, not the publisher.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Owen Densmore <[hidden email]>Date: Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 10:02 AM
Subject: Elsevier — my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog
To: Complexity Coffee Group <
[hidden email]>
Timothy Gowers the Fields medalist mathematician has a recent post on Elsevier and a growing movement to boycott their use
http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-in-its-downfall/
This includes not submitting to the VERY MANY math journals owned by Elsevier:
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/P11.cws_home/mathjournals
.. or reviewing submissions
One previous successful act against Elsevier was extraction of the Journal of Topology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology_(journal)
On 10 August 2006, after months of unsuccessful negotiations with Elsevier about the price policy of library subscriptions, the entire
editorial board of the journal handed in their resignation, with effect from 31 December 2006. Subsequently, two more issues appeared in 2007 with papers that had been accepted before the resignation of the editors. In early January the former editors instructed Elsevier to remove their names from the website of the journal, but Elsevier refused to comply, justifying their decision by saying that the editorial board should remain on the journal until all of the papers accepted during its tenure had been published.
In 2007 the former editors announced the launch of the Journal of Topology, run under the auspices of the London Mathematical Society at a significantly lower price.
Its interesting that Timothy also refers to SOPA/PIPA and took part in the wikipedia led protest. (I just found out that wordpress made a plugin that folks all could use for that and future protests. Impressive!)
I'd really like more of us to be careful about our papers and demand they be open. Its not exactly black/white, but certainly the papers have to be publicly available, whatever else the publisher's rights may be.
I'd like your opinions, which are quite likely more informed than mine.
-- Owen
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org