Elsevier
From Eureka
Elsevier is part of a multimedia conglomerate called Reed Elsevier. In 2005, Elsevier revenues totalled €2,097 million. Elsevier has global operations involving 7,000 journal editors, 70,000 editorial board members, 200,000 reviewers, and 500,000 authors publishing 2,000 journals, 17,000 books; with 1,900 new books each year.
Elsevier is a major practitioner of journal bundling, a technique which makes it difficult for libraries to drop subscriptions to individual journals as prices rise. However, a rebellion against this is underway. In 2003, Cornell University dropped their subscription to 930 Elsevier journals. Four North Carolina universities have joined in, and the University of California has also been battling Elsevier. For other actions universities have taken, read Peter Suber's list.
With the complicity of Google Scholar, Elsevier also practices cloaking, a technique where "what you see is not what you get" when using a search engine.
Formerly, Reed Elsevier organised arms fairs as part of their group's business activity. On 1st June 2007, they announced they planned to abandon this
Elsevier is backing PRISM, a coalition of publishers against open access. In July 2006, representatives of Elsevier and other PRISM supporters met with Eric Dezenhall to plan their public relations campaign against open access[1]. This campaign attempts to equate traditional journals with the practice of refereeing, and equate government support for open access with censorship.
Go to Category:Published by Elsevier to see a list of maths and physics journals published by Elsevier.
References
- ↑ Jim Giles, PR's 'pit bull' takes on open access: Journal publishers lock horns with free-information movement, Nature, 24 January 2007; doi:10.1038/445347a
