At Cornell University there is "preliminary discussion on a national symposium" to be held at the upstate New York campus to discuss, among other things, the rising costs of subscriptions to commercially published academic journals, according to Ross Atkinson, Cornell's deputy university librarian.
The backdrop for the potential symposium? A number of recent significant events in the world of academic publishing:
High journal-subscription costs have been a simmering topic in academic library circles for several years. And a number of academics don't hesitate when asked why commercially published journals are so costly. "They have stockholders that are interested in profits, I presume," says Kraig Adler, professor of biology at Cornell, who chaired the committee study. "We didn't come right out and say it's greed, but I don't see any other really good explanation."
Martin Rosenzweig "Profiteering is what I call it," asserts Rosenzweig, adding the commercial publishers are concerned about ...
