[Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit

[Stephen Thorpe]

John! I care about the possible reduction in the amount of taxonomic research. I care about the possibilty that good taxonomists without public funding may not be able to afford to publish. I care about the open access issue being sold as being for the public good, when it is no such thing. I don't care IN GENERAL what our taxes are spent on.

Stephen

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On Mon, 18/1/16, John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit
 To: "Stephen Thorpe" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
 Cc: "Lynn Raw" <lynn at afriherp.org>, "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
 Received: Monday, 18 January, 2016, 2:03 PM
 
 Stephen,
 But you
 do seem to care what your taxes are spent - or at least that
 is the impression I get when when you express opinions about
 public funds being used to provide open access which will
 reduce the amount of taxonomic research as it will come out
 of the overall budget. Public funds are from taxes and so if
 you care about how public funds are spent then you do care
 about how taxes are spent or what they are spent on.
 John Grehan
 On Sun, Jan 17, 2016 at
 3:02 PM, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
 wrote:
 John,
 
 
 
 No, that is a red herring. I don't really care what our
 taxes are spent on. My objection to open access is that
 public good is being used to defend it when the public gets
 nothing that they want, and clearly there is something else
 entirely behind all the pro open access lobbying. I am also
 concerned that it will result in less taxonomic research
 being done, due to a proportion of the funding being
 diverted to open access fees (ultimately ending up as
 publisher's profits). Maybe USA is awash in excess
 funding, but N.Z. not so much!
 
 
 
 Stephen