Jim Giles, who broke the story of how for-profit publishers had hired Eric Dezenhall to run a PR campaign against Open Access, has a post at the New Scientist Science News blog, where he posts a copy of Dezenhall's proposal. It always nice to see more of the inner workings of the astroturf industry:
4 Enlist Think Tank Support
Seek studies, white papers and public commentary from think tanks that may quantify the risks, the societal price tag of public access. Groups that may be considered include the American Enterprise Institute, Brookings, Cato, Competitive Enterpise Institute and National Consumers League.
When I was retyping that memo so people wouldn't have to deal with a PDF, I got to that list of "think tanks" and couldn't help but laugh out loud.
It's always good to see the chsampions of "Freedom" fighting against freedom.
"the societal price tag of public access."
What about the massive 'societal price tag' of restricting public access to the science (which, on the whole, the public paid for in the first place via government grants)?
What a mercenary hypocrite.
The public paid for the science to be done (for the most part) but if you want public access you also have to pay for the publication (electronic and print) and maintenance of the records. That will be a significant and on-going cost to the budgets of a lot of countries. What is more, there will then be a policy risk. What if NIH, for example, decides that PubMedE-Journals are not an important part of their mission anymore?