Clarifying a few facts for Elsevier and their response to Lingua | Dr. Martin Paul Eve | Senior Lecturer in Literature, Technology and Publishing

" ... While Elsevier claims that it presents these 'facts' to 'clarify some misconceptions', I thought they might appreciate some facts to clarify their own misconceptions. Firstly, as far as I know, the editor-in-chief of Lingua did not want to take ownership of the journal. He asked to transfer ownership of the journal to the collective of editors. This is very different to the individual 'ownership' paradigm under which Elsevier seems to think. Secondly, again, to the best of my knowledge, Lingua was founded in 1949 by Albert Willem de Groot (1892-1963) and Anton Reichling (1898-1986), two Dutch structuralist linguists. It was originally published by North Holland, a Dutch publishing house, that was purchased by Elsevier in the nineties (edit correction: actually, the 1980s it seems). Elsevier didn’t, therefore, found the journal as far as I can see. Thirdly, and most importantly, when Elsevier claims that price points below their current level are not 'sustainable' I feel the urge to point out that Elsevier would say that and they are using the argument that 'what the market will bear' is the acceptable price point. They did, of course, make $1.1 billion profit in 2012 on a 36% profit rate. They have just established (correction: leased) new offices in the UK that include basketball courts for their staff, even as our university budgets here face a forecasted cut of 40%. So they may have a different idea, in the mind of shareholders, as to what 'sustainable' actually means ..."