[Taxacom] Open Access Publishing

[Kenneth Kinman]

Dear All,
      For a large number of publishers claiming "open access" options
under various names, it seems like just more PR of a sort, and whether
it is paid for by end users or is an upfront-paid "option" for authors
(their institutions), it still seems to pay an expensive middle-man
publishing firm a rather hefty fee that tends to restrict the
availability of scientific information from those less able to pay.       
        I guess this is fine for institutions backed by governments with
"deep pockets" financially, but like media in general, your influence
tends to depend on how much you can pay to get it into mainstream
scientific circulation (which can in turn influence how much you can get
government agencies to continue funding your research).        
       The question is whether it make sense to pay such a middle-man
fee when much less expensive options are available on an increasingly
egalitarian Internet.  Most new valuable, scientific information could
easily be transmitted by text files or even richer PDF files, neither of
which require a middle-man publisher that inflates the price and thus
restricts how many people can access it.     
       The Internet is a great tool for eliminating middlemen that can
unnecessarily add great cost and restrict access, but often only
minimally add to quality (if at all).   Frankly, I'd rather have greater
access and do my own peer review (quality assessment).  In general, one
cannot probably always trust anonymous peer reviewers picked by
publishers (who can be influenced by financial concerns) to be totally
objective in their reviews.  When profits become a concern, scientific
truth can become a casualty.  In some ways, publishers can be as
problematic as the U.S. Congress.    
            --------Ken Kinman