Last winter Fields Medalist mathematician Tim Gowers announced on his blog that he would no longer publish with, review papers for, or serve in an editorial role for the scholarly publisher Elsevier. In doing so he noted Elsevier’s high prices, their marketing practice of bundling large sets of journals to libraries, and their support for legislation that would lead to restricted access to scholarly publications. Very quickly a web petition went online, The Cost of Knowledge asking other researchers to also commit to refusing to similarly support Elsevier’s practices. Currently, over 12,000 researchers from around the world have signed on, including several members of the UA community.

To launch the University Libraries’ new series of community dialogues, Scholarly Publishing Conversations, and in recognition of 2012’s Open Access Week, three campus researchers will lead a discussion with the UA community of why make such a pledge, our expectations of scholarly publishers, and what we can do at the UA to support efforts to meet those expectations.

Speakers:

-Brad Boyle, Research Associate, UA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
-Chad Park, Staff Scientist, UA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
-David Savitt, Associate Professor, UA Department of Mathematics