Jump to content

All Cambridge Journals are free to access for 6 weeks


ajb

Recommended Posts

In order to reach out to new readers, who may not enjoy access to high quality scientific and academic research, all 2009 and 2010 content on Cambridge Journals Online (CJO) will be made free to access between 15th July and 30th August 2011.

 

Follow this link.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

It should always be for free.

 

It's ridiculous that publishers get rich over the backs of the authors. It's a mafia practice, with a monopoly position for the large publishers and the position of a slave for the authors who get no money, and have to beg and hope... if you ask me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

CUP is a part of Cambridge University - so if anyone is gonna be making money out of academic work perhaps it is correct that the universities should be the beneficiaries

Edited by imatfaal
Link to comment
Share on other sites

How rich exactly do the publishers get?

Just google for the annual report of Elsevier. See page 2 (look at the page numbers, don't just scroll to the 2nd slide). It's a .pdf btw.

 

Reported figures

Revenue: 7,084 million euro

Adjusted operating profit: 1,819 million euro

Adjusted profit before tax: 1,496 million euro

 

I do not know in detail what all those profits mean, but I do know it's not just peanuts. That's a serious business, with equally serious money, earned because all the scientists in the world do not get money.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the numbers, it's far from standard in this forum that people back up their statements with quantitative arguments. The profit indeed sounds more than I had expected. But to be fair you have to realize that the 7M Euro revenue seem to come with a 5M+ Euro operating cost (that's how I read the numbers - I'm not an economist). That motivates the following simplified assumption: if they were a non-profit organization then fees would be about 75% of what they are now. That still is ridiculously expensive, and far from free.

 

EDIT: Incidently, I think I never read an article from Elsevier (I know the name, though). I checked with the publishers of my papers: most papers are free for download (IOP). Only one costs (AIP), but is of course also available on arXiv for free (and with better formatting :D).

Edited by timo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.