refusing to support Elsevier

[Christine Corcoran]

 From 2000 to the end of 2008, I managed the publication of fifteen  
different journals  at the University of Chicago Press including  
Current Anthropology and the International Journal of American  
Linguistics, and I have many thoughts on this topic. I don't feel able  
to condense them all at the moment.

But, I will say whatever problems there may be with university presses  
or with any university press in particular, I find those issues are  
always potential problems in the for-profit publishing world. And  
since university presses exist to publish important but not  
traditionally considered commercially viable work, they are always  
more responsible and responsive publishing partners. Whatever culture  
may exist between a press and a journal office, it is always more  
malleable than one with a commercial publisher. Unfortunately  
societies and journal offices don't always know what all of their  
options are or what really is negotiable. But these include everything  
from what sort of expertise copy editors should posses to what price  
to set for reproducing a single copyrighted article.

At this point I do not know what issues were involved in changing the  
contract for the AAA journals from the Univ of California Press to  
Wiley-Blackwell, but when that contract is up, we should consider the  
issues brought up regarding Elsevier.

For example, they may charge the AAA less to publish the journals, but  
they may charge libraries considerably more for subscriptions. Or if  
not, may also participate in bundling. Or may charge considerably more  
for access to the electronic versions of back issues. Or if they are  
responsible for copy editing, may outsource that work to editors who  
have no training in editing anthropology, archeology, linguistics, or  
any social science. Or may outsource to an organization who does not  
pay their workers fairly or equitably. Or may only use freelance  
editors in order to avoid paying benefits. (Please note I am not  
suggesting these aren't very serious problems in the university press  
world as well, problems I will add, that are largely unaddressed.)  
These questions need to be asked of whatever publishing partner  
approaches. The AAA is somewhat unique in having such a large  
portfolio and therefore more options.

Also I note that the price for reproducing a CA article is $10. That  
information is printed in the copyright line at the bottom of each  
page. But the cost of reproducing an AA article is only .20 a page.  
You have to go to the Copyright Clearance Center and enter the ISSN to  
get that information. But frankly CA should consider renegotiating  
this. At any rate these are all things we should all consider when  
that contract is up.


Chris Corcoran, PhD Student
Dept of Linguistics, University of Chicago
c-corcoran at uchicago.edu


On Jan 25, 2012, at 6:36 PM, Chad Nilep wrote:

> To follow up on Celso's observation (or at least what I make of it),  
> "There's no way out from within: that's the way the field works, and  
> when the Market can show shamelessly its big claws -- which is its  
> vocation -- it's because the times are ripe for it."
>
> As an adjunct and quite junior faculty person, I feel right and  
> truly trapped. I would like to advance in my field, not (only)  
> because I am personally ambitious but because I truly feel that  
> academic research, even with inevitable short comings, makes a  
> genuine contribution to the place of humanity in the world. At the  
> same time, I would resist neoliberal capitalist models of knowledge  
> production, not (only) because I receive the short end of such  
> arrangements but because I feel that they shortchange most  
> individuals and humanity as a whole.
>
> The options I am left with are either (1) refuse to support Elsevier  
> -- and by the way Blackwell, Benjamins, Cambridge, Routledge (all of  
> which I have learned either first-hand or from trusted colleagues  
> exploit scholars in similar ways), and probably most other  
> publishers,* or (2) attempt to advance as a scholar by publishing my  
> work in "respected" journals and books. I cannot do both, as they  
> appear to be mutually exclusive.
>
> *But, ever the optimist, I constructed this list of not-for-profit  
> journals last fall. http://linganth.blogspot.com/2011_09_07_archive.html
>
> Chad Nilep
> Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences
> Nagoya University
> Japan