"Few if any of us are in this to make money says Fred
Spilhaus. Look at the salaries and perks offered to
their executives by certain professional societies (in
the USA). I don't want to name them, but all of us
know these are the societies which oppose OA archiving
tooth and nail. These executives speak on behalf of
the societies without taking into account what the
members have to say. A clear case of paid employees
(or in some cases elected members) acting on their own
instead of representing the larger membership as they
should in any democratic organization.
A professor of chemistry at the Indian Institute of
Science, Bangalore, resigned his membership from a
US-based society in protest against the society's
policy with regard to open access.
Members should take the time to question unilateral
decisions of societies and make them work
democratically.
Arun
[Subbiah Arunachalam]
--- "Andrew A. Adams" <A.A.Adams_at_READING.AC.UK> wrote:
> Fred Spilhaus wrote:
>
> > Few if any of us are in this to make money. I
> consider the society to be the
> > guardian of the body of knowledge for our
> community. There is no other way
> > those most interested in assuring that the record
> of a discipline is not lost
> > can assure that will not happen except to do it
> themselves and that is why
> > there are societies.
>
> I'm afraid I part company here wth Fred. There are
> as many reasons for
> societies existing as there are societies.
> Undoubtedly some have the
> principal aim of providing archive, but it is not
> the principle goal of many.
> For most it is the promotion of the advancement of
> their subject. I know of
> few societies in the UK who maintain anything like
> what could be called a
> comprehensive library of their relevant subject
> matter. Societies exist
> because science is inherently a collaborative
> process. It requires
> communication between scientists. When the Royal
> Society was founded, it was
> founded to provide a mechanism for the communication
> of scientists amongst
> themselves.
>
> In the modern digital era, communication amongst
> ourselves is being strangled
> by a publishing system designed for the
> "Gutenberg/Caxton era" not the
> "Licklider/Berners-Lee era". The quickest
> demonstrated method of moving
> forward is that of Green OA. I fail to see why most
> societies, founded on the
> belief that communication between scientists is one
> of the best ways of
> moving science forward, would be against OA, except
> where they are confused
> (well, let them ask questions - of their members, of
> the OA advocacy
> community) or where they are putting the interests
> of "the society as an
> organ" above those of its members and science as a
> whole. Any society which
> does this should be roundly condemned, as indeed was
> the Royal Society when a
> small group of autocrats opposed the RCUK mandate
> without consulting the
> Fellows.
>
>
> --
> *E-mail*a.a.adams_at_rdg.ac.uk******** Dr Andrew A
> Adams
> **snail*27 Westerham Walk********** School of
> Systems Engineering
> ***mail*Reading RG2 0BA, UK******** The University
> of Reading
> ****Tel*+44-118-378-6997*********** Reading, United
> Kingdom
> **http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~sis00aaa/**
>
Received on Mon Apr 02 2007 - 10:54:23 BST