I suspect that most readers have already seen this somewhere (Eric had a post on this last week), but just in case: there is an ongoing campaign to boycott the academic publisher Elsevier. So far it has been signed by 1983 people, who pledge not to publish, referee or do editorial work for Elsevier (it is possible to opt out of only one or two of these). The reasons given are the usual: they charge exorbitant prices for their journals and practice ‘bundle subscription’, so that libraries are forced to acquire a whole package of journals they do not want in order to subscribe to the ones they do want.
Elsevier is not a particularly big publisher in philosophy, but its presence in math and physics, and many other fields, is very strong. Indeed, Fields medalist Timothy Gowers has been one of the most vocal supporters of the boycott campaign. But we have our own ‘sharks’ in philosophy too (Springer in particular comes to mind), and the scam that is commercial academic publishing has been extensively discussed here at NewAPPS. Are we ready to follow the lead? Should similar campaigns be launched for other publishers?
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