Elsevier needs to get out more

"But while there can be little doubt that Elsevier played an important role in the introduction of the RWA, and that it has donated money to the two lawmakers who sponsored the bill, it would be naïve to think that it is the only publisher that supports the RWA. Most of the others have apparently chosen to keep their heads down and let Elsevier take the hits. For that reason Elsevier has become the primary target for critics of the bill. But why is the criticism quite so vitriolic? Partly, no doubt, because Elsevier is the world’s largest and most dominant subscription publisher, and has long been held to overcharge for its journals, and partly because it resisted Open Access for so long, and with such obduracy. But I think there an important additional reason. Since Derk Haank departed Elsevier for Springer in 2003, the company has had no human face. In many people’s eyes, therefore, the company is viewed not so much as a publisher, but as a faceless, anonymous, and unheeding, moneymaking machine intent only on sucking the lifeblood out of the research community in order to feed the insatiable appetite of its shareholders....[T]he company could do itself a big favour if it began to communicate more directly, and more effectively, with the research community...."