Making Elsevier, Springer, and Wolters Kluwer Nervous: The Free Scientific Paper Ploy

September 15, 2016

I read “Europe Announces That All Scientific Papers Should Be Free by 2020.” Sounds exciting for the major STEM publishers operating in the business-friendly European Community. The problem is the “should be”. Quite parental.

The write up calls attention to an outfit called the Competitiveness Council. The idea is that STEM content funded by the government I presume but one never knows in EC land.

I noted this passage:

Indeed, at the present time, the council has provided scarce details related to how countries can expect to make the full transition to open access and meet the deadline, which is less than four years away. That’s not too surprising, as the announcement was only just made a few days ago. But given the current state of scientific literacy, and the sad state of science communication, well, the sciences need all the help they can get. So this commitment is almost unanimously welcomed by those working in STEM and associated careers.

Google may want to commiserate with some of the publishers likely to be impinged upon if this adult idea becomes a reality. No, hold that thought. Some European publishers don’t like Google and would use a meet up with the Googlers as an opportunity to talk about getting compensated for their content.

Stephen E Arnold, September 15, 2016

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