The Cost of Knowledge Versus Elsevier: 5,600 Signatures and Growing

“Timothy Gowers, a Cambridge mathematician and winner of the coveted Fields medal in mathematics, began The Cost of Knowledge (COK) website petition to publicize his own personal boycott of Elsevier... Gowers, who inspired the petition in a Jan. 21, 2012 blog post with the title ‘Elsevier: my part in its downfall,” says he believes Elsevier’s practices are doomed—“the internet will see to that...’ The inspiration for Gowers’ actions are credited to Peter Suber , Director of the Harvard Open Access Project, who pledged on Jan. 7 that ‘(he) realized that I have a third reason not to referee for certain publishers, and it would apply even if I were willing to referee for toll-access journals. I will not referee for a publisher belonging to the Association of American Publishers unless it has publicly disavowed the AAP’s position on the Research Works Act...’ The number of signatories to COK has grown slowly but steadily to more than 5,600 researchers who vow not to do editorial work, review papers, or submit their work to an Elsevier publication... ‘The world has changed in significant ways. Authors typeset their own papers, using electronic typesetting. Publishing and distribution costs are not as great as they once were,” states the newly released Statement of Purpose on the COK website. “And most importantly, dissemination of scientific ideas no longer takes place via the physical distribution of journal volumes. Rather, it takes place mainly electronically. While this means of dissemination is not free, it is much less expensive, and much of it happens quite independently of mathematical journals...’ However, of particular note are the comments that individuals who sign the petition can include. ‘With the moves of these megapublishers, we are seeing the beginning of monopoly control of the scholarly record,’ notes Hal Abelson at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab - Computer Science. ‘This does not serve the needs of scholarship or the needs of the public...’ Elsevier, for its part, responded in an open letter it released that argues that ‘some of the facts about Elsevier are being misrepresented, the depth of feeling among some in the research community is real and something we take very seriously. We’re listening to all the concerns expressed and redoubling our substantial efforts to make our contributions to that community better, more transparent, and more valuable to all our partners and friends in the research community...’ Feb. 9, 2012 development: The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2012 (FRPAA) has been introduced in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives...”