Where is Academic Publishing Headed.

[¿Que?]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jan/16/academic-publishers-enemies-science/print

I read this kind of fast, and didn't really get it. I don't understand all the obscure legal bullshit they're talking about. On the other hand, I've read elsewhere how academic publishing, as in producing a commodity, the article, if it becomes more open, then it will be increasingly difficult to make a living doing this, although on the contrary, this would force people to focus more on teaching. But also, there have been some critiques of anti-SOPA that observe a power struggle between large technology companies like google, against laws like SOPA which limit their profitability, and the Entertainment industry, which seeks to gain from such laws. This ultimately is the battle for the commanding heights of the economy of technology, the fiber optics and satellite networks. This whole issue of academic publishing seems to tow a similar line as anti-SOPA. For openness and freedom of information, but which ultimately will see profiting the technology companies equipped to host the new influx of published articles, data centers such as owned by google and others.

Ok, it's kind of a rough analysis...

[o well this is ok I guess]

As it was observed in the article, "Elsevier's business does not make money by publishing our work, but by doing the exact opposite: restricting access to it.". This is pretty much the same for most publishers.
So uh, fuck verso

[blake 3:17]

Why all the Verso hating? The issue is a complex one. I paid for dozens of Verso books over the years.

From I understand they tried to stand apart from the racketeers & found libraries weren't buying their stuff because it was special order.

More worrisome is the recent dismissal of Harvard librarians:
E Keathley - 19 Jan 2012 (edited) - Public
UPDATE: http://t.co/KaUl0iZR - has more direct info, and is closer to the source than I am. This blog post writes that research librarians won't be laid off, but I still stand by what I wrote below. And honestly? After a decade of successive cuts to Harvard library staff, I just don't know that I believe that research librarians are safe.

original post below.

The nature of academic and research librarianship changed today. Today, all Harvard librarians were essentially given pink slips, asked to participate in a website that has tips on rewriting your resume and changing your career, and also asked to basically re-apply for their jobs. You can read updates on twitter at #hlth .

Harvard has the second largest endowment in the world, second only to the funds held by the Vatican. If Harvard is unwilling to fund research librarians, you can bet most US libraries will quickly ditch their staff as well. This will impact your health, because it impacts medical research. This will impact the economy, because it will impact engineers needing information access. This will impact all areas of R&D in the United States, because much of the in-depth research assistance to those working on DARPA, NIH, and other government grants is - surprise!! - conducted on behalf of researchers by academic and research librarians.

Full disclosure: I have worked both for Harvard Medical Library and Harvard University Library. In that second position, I helped consolidate the foreign language libraries into the main university library. I'm obviously not against consolidation of information. But my time in the medical library underscored for me how very important librarians are to the research process.

Information neither curates nor organizes itself. I hope that Harvard plans to hire back the majority - if not all - of its librarians, and retrains them for DAM or remote research assistance. Another good idea would be to embed research librarians in individual research projects - effectively assigning a knowledge worker to important projects.

My worst fear is that the finest research library system in the world is being gutted, and that we're all going to suffer for a lack of reference. Harvard needs to issue a press statement NOW about what their master plan might be regarding #hlth . We all deserve to know what's going on - especially those librarians and archivists who have devoted their lives to helping make all of ours better.

UPDATE:@mpeachy8 is live tweeting info given to librarians.

Source:https://plus.google.com/u/0/108106506236836816610/posts/RXau1dC29ho

[blake 3:17]

Fighting the library layoffs
A Harvard clerical worker reports on the latest protests against threatened layoffs.

February 15, 2012

BOSTON--On February 10, approximately 100 library workers, students and supporters held a rally at Harvard University to protest the threat of widespread layoffs throughout Harvard's library system.

Under fire for their complete lack of transparency concerning the proposed "new Library organizational design," Harvard administrators have twice in the past week released campus-wide open letters attempting to explain their vision of change. However, these letters--from the Harvard president and provost, respectively--were most notable for what they left out of their rambling explanation. That is, the question of layoffs.

Aside from recognizing that "members of the talented library staff are anxious to see how the transition will affect them as individuals," top Harvard officials still have yet to deny that layoffs are part of their "new vision" for the libraries.

Most of the library workers at Harvard are represented by the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW). This affords the library workers a degree of protection from immediate layoffs, and HUCTW leaders have stated they intend to engage the management at the Harvard Libraries in "serious discussion" to avoid layoffs if possible.

Unfortunately, union leaders have indicated no desire to take things beyond "serious discussions." HUCTW did not officially endorse the February 10 rally, and have not called upon the membership to take any sort of action whatsoever, other than to just sit and wait.

Nonetheless, many students and workers are escalating the fight via other channels. In one exciting development, approximately two dozen students from Occupy Harvard began a 24-hour occupation of one of Harvard's main libraries on February 12.

The library occupation is meant to pose an alternative "vision" for the transformation of Harvard's library system--one that puts the question of education and work for the 99 percent ahead of purely money-making considerations.

As a group of occupiers put it in a joint opinion piece for the Harvard Crimson:

A library needs the workers who are its lifeblood, its circulatory system, just as a functioning democratic society needs the voices of the 99 percent. Systems built with profit imperatives can only serve to further perpetuate the patterns of destruction and unequal power structures that we denounce. The proposed library transition not only fails to address these systemic problems, it replicates them.

http://socialistworker.org/2012/02/15/fighting-library-layoffs