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6229 scientists have so far joined the boycot against Elsevier — see the boycot page here. They will not publish in any Elsevier journal, or will not referee articles for them, or will not do any editorial work.

It all started with mathematician Timothy Gowers open letter against Elsevier’s exorbitant prices, unreasonable subscription policy, and stubborn support for the Research Works Act.

It’s not just about one publisher that abuses the proprietary scientific journal system. Elsevier is the tip of the iceberg. Many scientists think the current century-old system of scientific publishing has reached its limits. What will replace it? Open access journals? A new kind of social media kind of platform? We don’t know — the future of scientific publishing is an exciting field for futuristic speculations.

(added 17 feb: see also Neil Stewart’s post on the LSAe Impact blog: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/02/15/after-elsevier-boycott-green-open-access/

PS: An hour after I wrote this the number of signatures has increased to 6246.

(image by Michael Eisen)

Thomas Söderqvist

Author Thomas Söderqvist

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