The Sibyl of Cumae | SciTechSociety

" ... Where the Sibyl of Cumae burned some books to increase the value of the remaining books, a scholarly journal rejects a certain number of papers for each paper it publishes. Many of the rejected papers may be interesting, but they do not fit the journal's mission. For the publisher, this is an opportunity to spawn new journals in the wake of its successful journals. Such portfolios of journals are less selective than their individual journals. Of course, if one considers the scholarly publishing industry at the macro level, the notion of selectivity virtually vanishes. Papers are submitted and re-submitted until an outlet is found ... It may take years and several turnovers of the editorial board before an established journal that covers a large domain accepts papers in an emerging field. This has created a seemingly insatiable demand for new highly specialized journals. Each successful journal serves its publisher by raising revenue, its editorial-board members by raising their research prestige, and its authors by providing an avenue for dissemination of material without a natural home in existing journals. Many of these journals cater to such a small cadre of specialists that they subvert the single largest scholarly benefit of the refereeing process: a critical reading by someone with a different point of view and background ... Open Access may not reduce the cost of scholarly communication as originally hoped. A large-scale conversion to Gold Open Access would shift the costs from universities to governments. Once university administrations no longer feel the budgetary pain and the costs are baked into government budgets, publishers would be free to continue the super-inflationary trajectory. There would not be any market forces that limit the introduction of new journals, the growth of existing journals, or the price charged per paper published. The access problem would be resolved by hiding, compounding, and postponing the cost problem. In the end, the scholarly-communication market would remain as dysfunctional as ever. Technology has eroded the foundation of the current scholarly-communication system. It assumes that there is a scarcity of dissemination, and it uses that scarcity for the purpose of gatekeeping. In fact, dissemination is abundant and nearly free. The scarcity and associated gatekeeping are marketing illusions ... Ultimately, we have little choice but to accept today's reality. Anyone has the power to disseminate any information, regardless of quality. No one has the power to be a gatekeeper. At most, editorial boards have the power of influence in their respective communities; they can highlight important achievements and developments. But even this power to influence may soon be challenged by crowd-sourced quality labels of alternative metrics. (Perhaps not.)  We should be elated about the recent successes of the Open Access movement. We should also recognize that Open Access is not an end point. It is only the first step in the reinvention of scholarly communication."