Closing Access to Scientific Literature: The Battle Begins | A. Townsend Peterson

" ... That sounds pretty good. However, in recent weeks, Elsevier directed Academia.edu to remove all Elsevier-owned scientific papers from its site. Next, Elsevier sent a message to the University of Calgary, directing it to remove all such papers from its publicly accessible websites. Quite clearly, these threats are Elsevier's next step towards milking a few last millions out of its journal holdings. Does this really sound like helping people to make critical decisions, enhance productivity and improve outcomes? Oh wait, it said helping customers, right? I guess that it's all about the money... What does this lockdown achieve? It throttles scientific communication. The scientific literature is growing very rapidly, and it is a struggle for every scientist to keep up with all of the fascinating papers that are coming out. Closing access makes this situation vastly more difficult. (Indeed, I am writing this blog post from my mother's house, and have no access to key scientific journals from here!) Elsevier Director of Access & Policy Alicia Wise tried to respond to the firestorm of protest and anger over the lockdown: Why do we send take down notices? 'We aim to ensure that the final published version of an article is readily discoverable and citable via the journal itself in order to maximize the usage metrics and credit for our authors, and to protect the quality and integrity of the scientific record. The formal publications on our platforms also give researchers better tools and links, for example to data.' Serving copies openly does not endanger the quality or the integrity of the scientific record... what it really comes down to is very simply protecting profits and income streams. Elsevier (and a lot of other commercial publishers) made an investment, and are trying to squeeze as much profit out of it as they possibly can, no matter what the consequences may be ..."