This one has prompted me to respond! ... This is such an odd view of "powerful academics". It is precisely the "powerful academics", aka tenured and/or full Professors, who can afford to go to these new venues. Moreover, if work is not getting full play in journals -- because of the invisibility and inaccessibilty of print journals or fee-based online journals -- then why wouldn't we all flock to online publishing to gain the 'power' of widespread access. So, why don't we? -- because, believe it or not, many of us actually have put time and energy into journals -- setting them up, reviewing papers, considering the standards of good research, argumentation and knowledge, and wanting to make it worth someone taking the time to open up a journal, and for those outside our discipline to take us seriously as a discipline. Yes, it is a gatekeeper role, and I'm proud to be part of it as should be all others who strive for quality in their work and *their* journals. /Caroline ---- Original message ----
Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:37:15 -0500 From: Christian Nelson <xianknelson@mac.com> Subject: Re: [Air-L] open-access is the future: boycott locked-down academic journals To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org
We're still talking about open-source journals that would utilize some sort of reader rating system to make editorial decisions, right? Why would powerful academics leave the current set of journals, over which they have total editorial control, for journals over which they would have considerably less control, considering that journal article publication is the main source of academic capital for most scholars? No one ever gives up power willingly.
On Feb 8, 2008, at 4:25 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
So yes, I agree: luring big names is part of what has to be done. I just don't find that particularly daunting.
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---------------------------------------- Caroline Haythornthwaite Associate Professor Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820