Monthly Archives: March 2014

I am proud to be a Fellow of the OpenForumAcademy – which promotes openness in IT standards and procurement. We are very concerned about the pressures to lead to two/many-tier Internet access and we urge “Net Neutrality”. Read this and … Continue reading →

I have been so busy over the last few days and the world has changed so much that I haven’t managed to blog one of the most significant news – the UK government has tables its final draft on the … Continue reading →

A month or so ago Elsevier published a “click-through” licence “allowing” researchers to use Elsevier content for Text-and-Data-Mining (TDM) – more widely content mining.  Nature News rejoiced and suggested everyone could start mining. I read the licence carefully and wrote … Continue reading →

NOTE ADDED after first version. This is so massive that I completely forgot to mention a whole chunk of contributors including Ernesto Priego, Graham Steel (McDawg) and others. Here’s Ernesto’s blog: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/03/24/wellcome-trust-apcs-serials-crisis/ where he first outlined the headline figures and … Continue reading →

Someone needs to take formal action against Elsevier. Like taking them to court. In this case Wellcome. Two days ago I posted /pmr/2014/03/24/today-at-elseviergate-more-potholes-and-bumps-on-the-shared-journey-please-help-us-find-paywalled-openaccess-elsevier/ where  I mentioned an APC-paid Open Access article behind a paywall. In response to this Elsevier lifted the … Continue reading →

The recent (wonderful) collection of Wellcome-sponsored articles (thanks Robert Kiley) has highlighted the huge percentage of “hybrid” articles – where both the author and the subscribing library pay the publishers. Publishers claim they give the money back to libraries. Do … Continue reading →

It’s easy (if tedious) to find paywalled Open Access articles in Elsevier journals. You go to Robert Kiley’s excellent spreadsheet (curated by Michelle Brook and others) , find publisher = Elsevier , search for the title and go to the journal … Continue reading →

I am working very closely with Michelle Brook on OKFN science and the Content Mine. Yesterday she spent much of it hacking the splendid Wellcome Trust spreadsheet of how much WT has spent on Open Access APCs and  with which … Continue reading →

Some years ago Elsevier  led a PR campaign, PRISM, to discredit Open Access. They paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a PR “expert” Dezenhall whose speciality is dirtying people and organisations. He told them that they should promote Open … Continue reading →

Elsevier’s VP of Product Management, Platform and Content (VPPMPC) and Director of Access and Policy  (DoAP) have published a statement “Open access – the systems journey” about their misselling of rights. They say nothing about the continuing problem of APC-paid articles … Continue reading →