Open Access Anthropology

Readers of the Open Access Anthropology blog might have an interest in an opinion essay that I (Jason Baird Jackson) wrote recently. In it, I lay out some modest steps  that scholars interested in changing the direction of scholarly communications might take. The focus is a plea to withdraw from working with commercial publishers. The [...]

Inside Higher Education reports today on two developments in social science publishing centered on the large commercial publisher Sage.  In the story available here, we learn that the American Sociological Association, has followed the lead of the AAA and foresaken self-publishing its journals portfolio in lieu of a co-publishing agreement with Sage. This would have [...]

Inside Higher Education recently reported on a scheme through which Elsevier sought to offer $25 Amazon gift cards to anyone who gave one of its textbooks a five star rating on the Amazon or Barnes and Noble websites.  The sorry details are available in the IHE story here. Please join me in having nothing to [...]

Scholarly communication reformers and critics recently learned of another way in which the for-profit, toll access journal system has become significantly corrupted when media reports revealed that the giant publishing firm Elsevier has been publishing fake medical journals at the behest of large pharmaceutical firms including Merck. While those concerned with the corporate enclosure of [...]