"Elsevier is emblematic of an abusive publishing industry. "The
government pays me and other scientists to produce work, and we give it
away to private entities," says Brett S. Abrahams, an assistant professor
of genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. "Then they charge
us to read it." Mr. Abrahams signed the pledge on Tuesday after reading
about it on Facebook."
http://chronicle.com/article/As-Journal-Boycott-Grows/130600/
http://thecostofknowledge.com/
"Elsevier has supported a proposed federal law, the Research Works Act
(HR 3699), that could prevent agencies like the National Institutes of
Health from making all articles written by grant recipients freely
available."
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.03699:
"Research Works Act - Prohibits a federal agency from adopting,
maintaining, continuing, or otherwise engaging in any policy, program, or
other activity that: (1) causes, permits, or authorizes network
dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior
consent of the publisher; or (2) requires that any actual or prospective
author, or the author's employer, assent to such network dissemination.
Defines "private-sector research work" as an article intended to be
published in a scholarly or scientific publication, or any version of
such an article, that is not a work of the U.S. government, describing or
interpreting research funded in whole or in part by a federal agency and
to which a commercial or nonprofit publisher has made or has entered into
an arrangement to make a value-added contribution, including peer review
or editing, but does not include progress reports or raw data outputs
routinely required to be created for and submitted directly to a funding
agency in the course of research."
Fred