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Biomedicine in museums

Springer's so called 'open choice option for open access'

By December 16, 2009No Comments

I just got a mail from Springer that offers me to publish my short article on crowdsourcing and museum acquisitions (forthcoming in NTM: Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin) in their so called ‘Open Choice option for Open Access programme’, so that it can be “freely available to everyone everywhere”.

I love open access, of course, like all other scholars and scientists. But my love of open access cools down considerably when I see what this ‘option’ would cost my research grant or my university. It’s pretty hefty: US$ 3000/ € 2000 (!). And it’s only 5-6 printed pages.

Well, I’m becoming used to this kind of capitalistic publishing policies. But what irritates me especially in this case is that if I happen to click on the wrong online button — these ‘yes’ vs. ‘no’ buttons are pretty hazy, so it’s really easy to press the wrong one when you’re in a hurry — the US$ 3000 ‘Open Choice, yes please’ order “is final and can’t be cancelled later”. One wrong little click, and you are tapping your research grant for a considerable amount of money! Not just robbing fees, also robbing methods.

Thomas Söderqvist

Author Thomas Söderqvist

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