[Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit

Fri Jan 15 14:39:31 CST 2016

Thanks Stephen, occasionally you say something sensible too!

John Grehan

On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 2:53 PM, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
wrote:

> Yes, finally John you have said something sensible (on this thread, I
> mean!)
>
> Another big drawback of open access publishing is that it favours authors
> with greater funding, creating a gap between the haves and have nots. Funny
> how it is mostly the "haves" who are lobbying most vocally for open access!
> Authors with the most funding will not necessarily publish the best work.
> Authors who might be able to publish better work should not be oppressed by
> those with greater economic power.
>
> Stephen
>
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Sat, 16/1/16, John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit
>  To: "Roderic Page" <Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk>
>  Cc: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
>  Received: Saturday, 16 January, 2016, 5:32 AM
>
>  Getting access to papers
>  is less a problem that the pay to play wall that
>  is being created for authors who do not have
>  the funds. So one one side,
>  access to papers
>  may be getting better, on the other access to publication
>  for some appears to be getting worse.
>
>  John Grehan
>
>  On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 7:25
>  AM, Roderic Page <Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk>
>  wrote:
>
>  > Hi
>  Scott,
>  >
>  > If you can
>  get the papers you want through your connections (in
>  other
>  > words a peer-to-peer network
>  > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_peer-to-peer_processes
>  ) then that
>  > works for you.
>  >
>  > I would argue that
>  reliance on such network, while meeting local needs
>  ("I
>  > can find my papers, what’s
>  the problem?”), doesn’t work at a global level.
>  > I work with hundreds of thousands of
>  papers and millions of names, and
>  >
>  anything which makes papers discoverable and accessible is
>  vital. The
>  > approach you describe is
>  simply untenable at this scale.
>  >
>  > If all you have is peer-to-peer networks
>  then taxonomy will remain
>  > discipline of
>  small clusters. Maybe that’s all taxonomists want.
>  >
>  > But other
>  disciplines, such as biomedicine and genomics realised
>  pretty
>  > early on that they needed to
>  centralise this, hence we have PubMed and now
>  > its open access cousin PubMed Central.
>  People doing all sorts of studies
>  >
>  access these, download content and do extraordinary things
>  with them. I,
>  > for one, would like
>  taxonomy to be able to do the same. Open access is a
>  > big part of that vision.
>  >
>  > Regards
>  >
>  > Rod
>  >
>  >
>  ---------------------------------------------------------
>  > Roderic Page
>  >
>  Professor of Taxonomy
>  > Institute of
>  Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
>  > College of Medical, Veterinary and Life
>  Sciences
>  > Graham Kerr Building
>  > University of Glasgow
>  >
>  Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
>  >
>  > Email:  Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk<mailto:Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk>
>  > Tel:  +44 141 330 4778
>  > Skype:  rdmpage
>  >
>  Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/rdmpage
>  > LinkedIn:  http://uk.linkedin.com/in/rdmpage
>  > Twitter:  http://twitter.com/rdmpage
>  > Blog:  http://iphylo.blogspot.com
>  > ORCID:  http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7101-9767
>  > Citations:
> http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=4Z5WABAAAAAJ
>  > ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Roderic_Page
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  On 15 Jan 2016, at 11:08, Scott Thomson <scott.thomson321 at gmail.com
>  > <mailto:scott.thomson321 at gmail.com>>
>  wrote:
>  >
>  > I get the
>  point on the open access argument but think that in
>  general
>  > whether behind a paywall or not
>  most papers are relatively easy to get. for
>  > paywalled papers people have numerous
>  options, writing to the author
>  >
>  obviously is one and that is not difficult, continuing with
>  the Zootaxa
>  > example in their online
>  preview of papers the corresponding authors contact
>  > details are included. For myself I always
>  try to immediately respond to
>  > these.
>  Second is ResearchGate where many authors upload their
>  papers
>  > irrespective of the paywall
>  issue, if they dont but include the reference
>  > the clicking of Request full text, button
>  is there. Many libraries also do
>  > still
>  carry access to papers and the more specialised ones such as
>  our
>  > field can often be obtained through
>  any University library. Lastly of
>  >
>  course are list serves like this where i can write a post
>  saying does
>  > anyone have .... and it
>  will be emailed to me by someone, we tend to share.
>  >
>  > For people not in
>  science who want to be, eg the truckie example mentioned
>  > earlier, well part of wanting to be in any
>  field is learning how to get the
>  >
>  information you want. They only have to learn how to access
>  the
>  > information. If the desire is there
>  it does not take long to learn these
>  >
>  basics.
>  >
>  > In all
>  honesty the only papers I have found very difficult to get
>  are
>  > obscure journals with limited runs,
>  generally older articles.
>  >
>  > As to the concern of public funding being
>  used for publishing, I agree
>  > that in
>  any grant I have seen or been a part of the publishing of
>  the
>  > findings is an accepted and
>  expected cost within the grant. Considering how
>  > much these grants are often for, the few
>  hundred in publishing is
>  > negligible, it
>  is also of benefit to the granting agency as it is a
>  > demonstration and justification of the
>  spending. Hence in most of my grants
>  >
>  copies of all publications were submitted to the agency in
>  the final
>  > reports.
>  >
>  > cheers Scott
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  --
>  > Scott Thomson
>  >
>  Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo
>  > Divisão de Vertebrados (Herpetologia)
>  > Avenida Nazaré, 481, Ipiranga
>  > 04263-000, São Paulo, SP, Brasil
>  > http://www.carettochelys.com<http://www.carettochelys.com/>
>  > ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1279-2722
>  > Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/0323517916624728<
>  >
> https://wwws.cnpq.br/cvlattesweb/PKG_MENU.menu?f_cod=1E409F4BF37BFC4AD13FD58CDB7AA5FD#
>  > >
>  > Skype:
>  Faendalimas
>  > Mobile Phone: +55 11 974 74
>  9095
>  >
>  >
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