Meet Kent Anderson, anti-#openaccess campaigner, publisher of Science

"The news that the American Association for the Advancement of Science named Kent Anderson as its new Publisher was met with shock and widespread derision by myself and other supporters of open access publishing. In the often mocking banter about this hire, a number of people wondered what we were getting all worked up about. So, for benefit of those unfamiliar with Mr. Anderson, here is a brief introduction of his oeuvre, and an explanation of what we find so troubling about the idea of him running Science.  Anderson has a long career in medical publishing, having worked for the New England Journal of Medicine for a decade before becoming publisher of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. But he is most well-known for his role as the primary author and moderator of The Scholarly Kitchen, a blog launched by Anderson under the auspices of the Society for Scholarly Publishing to provide 'timely updates and interpretation on research that publishers, librarians, authors, and other individuals involved in scholarship might want to know about'.  Anderson was fairly prolific at TSK, publishing over 1,000 posts over his 5 years at the helm, but I hadn’t heard of him or read his work before an April 2010 missive, 'PLoS’ Squandered Opportunity — Their Problems with the Path of Least Resistance', which begins thusly: '[An earlier post] reminded me of what I think is a sad story, one that hasn’t been told outside of private discussions, at least as far as I know. It’s the story of an opportunity sacrificed at the altar of open access, of a radicalism blunted into tradition, of audacity channeled down the path of least resistance.  It’s the story of the Public Library of Science.'  As a founder of the Public Library of Science, I took some umbrage at what turned out to be an ill-informed attack on open access publishing. Worse, it impugned our motives, suggesting (without having ever spoken to any of us) that the launch of PLOS ONE was motivated not by a desire to reform scholarly publishing, but by a simple desire to make money. This post began what can only be described as a four year long campaign to discredit open access publishing in general, and PLOS in particular. I can not begin to fully summarize his writings on the topic, so instead I’ve compiled a list so you can see yourself and decide what you think ..."