Martyn Daniels on science journal publishing
In a blog post entitled: Booksellers Association: Open Access - Who Pays?, Martyn Daniels of the Booksellers' Association discusses a Guardian article on "open access" publishing. Mr Daniels summarizes the scientific publishing process succinctly:
"Today researchers give their research papers to publishers who get them peer reviewed, edited, marketed, published and distributed through their branded journals. The practice seems very laudable in that the publisher acts as the arbitrator of quality, ensuring their value and the appropriate indexing, referencing, citations etc are correct and that the paper is brought to the attention of the academic community."
He goes on to discuss the European Research Council's recent report, looking at journal price and editorial workflows. He concludes: "There is no easy answer to the digital relationships that need to exist between publishers, creators and channels. This problem is not unique to journals but also has implications across the total social publishing environment. Perhaps there is logic in looking back to a time before publishers became the dominant players? What is clear is that the answer will not be found in the recent printed journal model and there is a need for all parties to recognize and respect the value each brings to the table in the digital world."
