Above, you see what the American Association for Cancer Research is now attempting to do--charge for access. Admittedly, it is a small price compared to what these greedy people normally try to get away with but, if they have their way, you'll end up paying hundreds of dollars to them over a year's course for the privilege of accessing what most likely is taxpayer-funded research.
So, what is my idea for this post? I'd like to see our government ask all researchers who benefit from our tax dollars to post their DRAFT manuscript on NIH or university website for anyone to see. There is no need for them to wait for their manuscript to be accepted by a journal.
This is a win-win because the greedy publisher still can do its capitalist thing and the taxpayer can have access for free. Now, the original draft may not have been proofread thoroughly but I'll bet the researcher worth his salt will submit a nearly perfect manuscript. Also, it may not have the perfect font or the perfect formatting but the entire text will be there along with any pictures submitted to the journal.
It is also a win for the researcher because he/she gets to publish way before the journal gets around to doing it and, market forces being what they are, the greedy publishers will have to add-on a ton of value to the manuscript to make it that much more appealing than the free draft version. Let them capitalize all they want--greedy monopolistic bastards.
Oh, and AACR, don't bother telling me that it was all a mistake by some webmaster you just hired--I'll not buy it!
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