Elsevier’s open letter point by point, and some further arguments

... “In response to the recent boycott and the discussion it has generated, Elsevier has put out an open letter entitled A message to the research community: journal prices, discounts and access... So let me explain why I find their open letter unsatisfactory even on their own terms (that is, even if we make the assumption that what is needed is more like an adjustment to the current system than a replacement of it)... The substantive part of their letter is then divided into bullet points, where they claim to correct the distortions that have been advanced. I’ll look at each of those in turn... [1] An annoying aspect of the open letter is that Elsevier are not precise about what they mean. For example, what is meant by the cost of downloading an article? Does it mean the cost for a private individual who follows a link to an article, clicks ‘Download pdf’ and is then asked for $30 or so? If so, did it really cost $150 10 years ago? That would have been insane. Or does it mean... [2] What does it mean to say ‘We have invested heavily in making our content more discoverable and more accessible to end-users and to enable the research community to develop innovative research applications.’? One possible interpretation of ‘making our content more discoverable’ is the very annoying phenomenon where an internet search for a paper takes you to an Elsevier page that suggests that all you have to do is click to download the paper, but then asks for money when you do... I simply don’t understand what they are saying here, and I suspect that if it means anything at all, then whatever it means is of little interest to mathematicians... [3] The devil is in the detail here[regarding bundling], and because of the confidentiality agreements that Elsevier insists on, it is very hard to find out the detail. So let me start by asking an obvious question: if the pricing policy is so reasonable, then why keep it confidential? Is it not healthy for academics to know how much their libraries are spending for their benefit, and what they are getting for the money, and what other deals would have been possible? ... The main point can be summarized as follows: Elsevier has a monopoly over a large number of journals (because you can’t just substitute them with other ones) and it exploits that monopoly. It’s welcome to do that, and those who pay for their journals (whether directly or indirectly) are welcome to find it irritating and try to find ways of doing without the product over which they have a monopoly... I’d like to consider two arguments that were put forward by another Elsevier representative, Alicia Wise. The first was that bundling protects some journals that would not otherwise get enough subscriptions to survive. To that I have two responses. One is that at least some of those journals are ones that shouldn’t survive — such as the notorious Chaos, Solitons and Fractals. I think her implication is that Elsevier is protecting the interests of journals in obscure but very worthwhile areas, but is it really those rather than bad journals in perfectly well-represented areas? I would need further evidence. Her second point was that Elsevier adds value in many ways, such as Science Direct, where they have put all their papers with lots of hyperlinks and so on... my response to all that is that if that is the main way that Elsevier (as opposed to the unpaid referees and editors) adds value, then what I would like to see is a system where we paid Elsevier for adding that value. Under such a system, a journal would be an autonomous organization, but if it wanted its papers to appear on Science Direct, so that they had all those links (the buzzword seems to be “metadata”), then they could pay for that service. Of course, Elsevier would have to set the price at a level that would be worth paying, given what the journal was getting. But then I’d feel confident that Elsevier was getting a fair price for the value it was adding, whereas now I don’t at all... Meanwhile, I hope that if you agree with the objectives of the boycott, then you will think about what you can do to help — things like making sure that your papers are easily available online, encouraging others to do the same, not submitting to an expensive journal when a cheap one is equally suitable (which I know is not always), supporting new cheap journals and publishing methods, and so on.”