I finally got the memo on 30 October making official what we knew was coming: The AnthroSource Steering Committee (ASSC) has officially been disbanded and will be replaced by the new “Committee on the Future of Print and Electronic Publishing.” There were lots of problems with the ASSC —it’s relationship to the finance committee and sections was never spelled out, for instance. But it is transparently obvious to everyone involved why the ASSC was replaced: as one member of the committee put it (not me) “we were all given pink slips soon after we pushed for FRPAA.” We are all, every one of us, tremendously disappointed in this decision.
Don’t look for the Committee on the Future of Print and Electronic Publishing to be looking to the future very much—their job is old school indeed: to figure out how to maximize the profits of the AAA’s publishing program. Not that this is a bad thing —the AAA has been losing money for a long time and AnthroSource has only been able to meet its target for earnings by consistently revising down its expectations. We certainly need a sustainable model for publishing to keep our publications afloat. And, to be sure, it is probably just the nature of scholarly publishing that it is perpetually in crisis in just this way. But there is no doubt in my mind that the AAA’s move to turn its back on the organization that was supposed to innovate its way out of this financial impasse reflects its Weapons of Mass Destruction business model: We’re sure the profits are around here somewhere. They have to be. We know they are. We just have to keep on doing what we’ve always been doing and ignore all those people who are suggesting that there might be workable alternatives to our current strategy....
Comment. Wow. I hope the AAA membership understands what just happened to a committee that stood up for the interests of the membership.
BTW, Rex links to my July 2006 coverage of the controversy. For my November coverage (published yesterday), click here.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/03/2006 11:31:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
