Previous post: The twist ending. 3. R. Kirby.
Finally, a few thoughts about what I see as the main problem with Gowers's new journals projects: the intended competition with “Annals of Mathematics” (Princeton UP), “Inventiones Mathematicae” (Springer) and “J. of the AMS” (AMS). These three journals are widely recognized as the main and the most prestigious journals in mathematics. As I mentioned already, only one of them, “Inventiones”, is expensive.
In fact, its real price is unknown, and in a sense does not exist. Nobody subscribes to this journal alone; it is way too expensive for individual researchers, and libraries nowadays subscribe to huge packages of Springer journals and electronic books in all sciences and mathematics. As is well known the price of such a package is substantially lower (may be by an order of magnitude) than the sum of list prices of subscribed journals. Of course, these package deals are one of the main problems with big publishers: most of journals in these packages are of very limited interest or just a plain junk. My point here is that this practice makes the list price of a journal irrelevant. But I do consider “Inventiones” as a very expensive journal.
The Gowers-Tao-Cambridge UP project is planned as a competitor not only to “Inventiones”, but to all top mathematics journals, both the general ones and specialized. If the project succeeds, the main and the most influential journal will be not “Annals”, but the new one. This would be very much like a corporate hostile takeover. The power will be shifted from the mathematicians at the Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Studies (both of which hire just the best mathematicians in the world available, without any regard to country of origin, citizenship, and all other irrelevant for mathematics qualities) to a much more narrow circle of T. Gowers’s friends and admirers.
The choice of the managing editor is, probably, the best for achieving such a goal. R. Kirby is the only mathematician who attempted something similar and succeeded. This story is told in the previous post. The choice of R. Kirby as the managing editors raises strong suspicion that the Gowers’s goal is the same as Kirby’s one. Only Kirby’s ambitions at the time were much more moderate: to control the main journal in one branch of mathematics. Gowers aims higher: to control the main journal in whole (or may be only pure?) mathematics.
I do realize that Kirby will deny my explanations of his motives, and so will Gowers. Both will claim that their goal was and is to ease access to the mathematical literature. Neither me, nor anybody else has a way to know what was and is going on in their minds. This can be judged only by their actions and the results of their actions. The result of Kirby’s project is that he controls the main journal in his area, and nothing is cheaper than it was. I expect that the result of Gowers's initiative will be the same.
So, this is the sad twist in the story: the only thing done by T. Gowers in the last 10-15 years (after his work on Banach spaces) which I wholeheartedly approved only two months ago, now seems (to me) to be a supporting campaign for his attempt to get even more power and influence in mathematics. The attention he got by inspiring the boycott of Elsevier and the accompanying attention to the problems of scientific publishing allowed T. Gowers to present his new journals as a solution of these problems.
And one should never forget that one of his goals is the elimination of mathematics as we know it, and turning mathematicians into service personnel for computers.
Next post: William P. Thurston, 1946-2012.
Conclusion of the series about Timothy Gowers: To be written.
Showing posts with label hostile takeover. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hostile takeover. Show all posts
Friday, August 17, 2012
The twist ending. 3. R. Kirby
Previous post: The twist ending. 2. A Cambridge don
R. Kirby (UC at Berkeley) is the Managing Editor of Gowers's journals. This justifies the following digression into Kirby's past achievements in scientific publishing.
In the 90ies he declared a war on the main journal in his field, namely “Topology”. Originally published by “Pergamon Press”, it was sold in early 90ies to Elsevier by late Robert Maxwell when his financial empire started to face serious problems. Of course, this wasn’t a good development, but it remained an excellent journal due, most likely, to its excellent and small editorial board. It was moderately expensive. I still fail to see any reason to single it out (as I don’t see any convincing justification for singling out the Elsevier in the recent boycott).
R. Kirby launched a new journal “Geometry&Topology” specifically intended to compete with “Topology” (and to eventually bring it down). It was published both online and in paper version. Online version was free; the paper version was very cheap initially. In contrast with “Topology”, the editorial board of “Geometry&Topology” was big and growing with time. The journal was also growing, and with the number of pages the price of the paper version was growing (the libraries were encouraged to subscribe to it; technically, for libraries the electronic access never was free). “Geometry&Topology” succeeded in diverting a lot of papers from “Topology”, and the editorial board of “Topology” was constantly pressured to attempt to lower the price (even when the individual subscription price to the paper version of “Topology&Geometry” surpassed that of “Topology”). Elsevier argued that the list price of a subscription is not relevant anymore (by the reasons I explained above using the example of “Inventiones”). The purpose of a relatively high list price, I believe, was to encourage participation in “package deals”. Eventually, the editorial board and Elsevier made a quite reasonable deal substantially lowering the price, but it was too late (and the list price already was not relevant).
On August 10, 2006 the whole editorial board of “Topology” resigned. Elsevier continued to publish the already accepted papers and managed to fill by them the 2007 volume. The subscription to 2007 volume was free for subscribers to the 2006 one. But the journal was, of course, dead.
Within a month (if I remember correctly, already in August 2006) “Geometry&Topology” closed free access to its electronic version or at least announced the imminent closing. Since then the access to the electronic version is by subscription only. Well, this is how much one can trust promises to be freely accessible in perpetuity. At the same time, “Geometry&Topology” doubled the subscription price, and invented some convoluted reason for quadrupling the subscription price for year 2007 (for any form of subscription, electronic or paper, individual or library). Being a member of our Library Committee, I attempted to understand their reasoning, but failed.
Nobody saved any money as a result of success of Kirby’s project. A slightly modified editorial board of “Topology” launched a replacement, “Journal of Topology” (apparently, Elsevier own the rights to the trademark “Topology”). “Geometry&Topology” is not a part of any package deal. I don’t know if the Oxford UP, the publisher of “Journal of Topology”, offers package deals, but our library had to subscribe to it as a standalone journal. So, the cost of subscription to specialized journals in the field of topology for our library substantially increased. If anybody was subscribing to “Geometry&Topology” or “Topology” as an individual, she or he, most likely, lost these subscriptions because of much higher prices.
During this struggle with “Topology” mathematicians gradually started to consider “Geometry&Topology” as the journal of choice for paper in topology and related fields.
So, the main result of Kirby’s ten-year effort is the fact that he now controls the main journal in his field (topology, of course). It seems that he had no chances to get into the editorial board of “Topology”. The co-author of his most famous papers, L. Siebenmann, was a member of the editorial board for decades, first as a regular member, then as a honorary one.
Next post: The twist ending. 4.
R. Kirby (UC at Berkeley) is the Managing Editor of Gowers's journals. This justifies the following digression into Kirby's past achievements in scientific publishing.
In the 90ies he declared a war on the main journal in his field, namely “Topology”. Originally published by “Pergamon Press”, it was sold in early 90ies to Elsevier by late Robert Maxwell when his financial empire started to face serious problems. Of course, this wasn’t a good development, but it remained an excellent journal due, most likely, to its excellent and small editorial board. It was moderately expensive. I still fail to see any reason to single it out (as I don’t see any convincing justification for singling out the Elsevier in the recent boycott).
R. Kirby launched a new journal “Geometry&Topology” specifically intended to compete with “Topology” (and to eventually bring it down). It was published both online and in paper version. Online version was free; the paper version was very cheap initially. In contrast with “Topology”, the editorial board of “Geometry&Topology” was big and growing with time. The journal was also growing, and with the number of pages the price of the paper version was growing (the libraries were encouraged to subscribe to it; technically, for libraries the electronic access never was free). “Geometry&Topology” succeeded in diverting a lot of papers from “Topology”, and the editorial board of “Topology” was constantly pressured to attempt to lower the price (even when the individual subscription price to the paper version of “Topology&Geometry” surpassed that of “Topology”). Elsevier argued that the list price of a subscription is not relevant anymore (by the reasons I explained above using the example of “Inventiones”). The purpose of a relatively high list price, I believe, was to encourage participation in “package deals”. Eventually, the editorial board and Elsevier made a quite reasonable deal substantially lowering the price, but it was too late (and the list price already was not relevant).
On August 10, 2006 the whole editorial board of “Topology” resigned. Elsevier continued to publish the already accepted papers and managed to fill by them the 2007 volume. The subscription to 2007 volume was free for subscribers to the 2006 one. But the journal was, of course, dead.
Within a month (if I remember correctly, already in August 2006) “Geometry&Topology” closed free access to its electronic version or at least announced the imminent closing. Since then the access to the electronic version is by subscription only. Well, this is how much one can trust promises to be freely accessible in perpetuity. At the same time, “Geometry&Topology” doubled the subscription price, and invented some convoluted reason for quadrupling the subscription price for year 2007 (for any form of subscription, electronic or paper, individual or library). Being a member of our Library Committee, I attempted to understand their reasoning, but failed.
Nobody saved any money as a result of success of Kirby’s project. A slightly modified editorial board of “Topology” launched a replacement, “Journal of Topology” (apparently, Elsevier own the rights to the trademark “Topology”). “Geometry&Topology” is not a part of any package deal. I don’t know if the Oxford UP, the publisher of “Journal of Topology”, offers package deals, but our library had to subscribe to it as a standalone journal. So, the cost of subscription to specialized journals in the field of topology for our library substantially increased. If anybody was subscribing to “Geometry&Topology” or “Topology” as an individual, she or he, most likely, lost these subscriptions because of much higher prices.
During this struggle with “Topology” mathematicians gradually started to consider “Geometry&Topology” as the journal of choice for paper in topology and related fields.
So, the main result of Kirby’s ten-year effort is the fact that he now controls the main journal in his field (topology, of course). It seems that he had no chances to get into the editorial board of “Topology”. The co-author of his most famous papers, L. Siebenmann, was a member of the editorial board for decades, first as a regular member, then as a honorary one.
Next post: The twist ending. 4.
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