I got an interesting email a couple of days ago from Robin Wilson: It’s an important question. Before I try to answer it, let me make it clear that I have no qualifications whatsoever to comment on this subject. I am an extremely junior researcher — not even a postdoc, I have an honorary position. I have never been an editor of any journal, nor on any publication committee.

Here is another illustration that I prepared for the forthcoming “ Apatosaurus ” minimus redescription. Compare this with the sacrum and fused ilia from the previous post.

I sent this letter to Wiley today, in response to their announcement of elective open access being available in 81% of their journals.

A couple of news items from the last few days show encouraging signs that Wiley, unlike certain other academic publishers, is taking steps to move in an open-access direction. First, there was the announcement four days ago that they have created a new role within the company specifically to lead their open access efforts. The lucky recipient is Rachel Burley, whose previous job title was Publisher“ and who is now Director of Open Access.

I mentioned a few posts ago that Matt and I are working on a redescription of AMNH 675, a sauropod specimen referred by Mook (1917) to “ Apatosaurus ” minimus , but which everyone knows is not Apatosaurus . We plan to share the illustrations from this in-progress paper as we prepare them, so here is perhaps the key one: {.size-full .wp-image-6480 aria-describedby=“caption-attachment-6480” loading=“lazy”

As you’ll know from all the recent AMNH basement (and YPM gallery) photos, Matt and I spent last week in New York (with a day-trip to New Haven). The week immediately before that, I spent in Boston with Index Data, my day-job employers. Both weeks were fantastic — lots of fun and very productive.

Just a link this time. Richard Smith was the editor of the British Medical Journal until 2004, and at one point he was chief executive of the BMJ Publishing Group. He is currently director of the United Health Group’s chronic disease initiative, and an unpaid professor at both Warwick University and Imperial College London. He’s a pretty big hitter by any standards. Does he have the access to research that he needs?

Earlier this month I was amazed to see the new paper by Cerda et al. (2012), “Extreme postcranial pneumaticity in sauropod dinosaurs from South America.” The title is dramatic, but the paper delivers the promised extremeness in spades.

From the collections of the American Museum of Natural History, I give you the sacrum and fused ilia of “ Apatosaurus ” minimus AMNH 675, as correctly identified by Steve P in a comment to the previous post: {.alignnone .size-full .wp-image-6439 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“6439” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2012/06/27/apatosaurus-minimus-sacrumilia-right-lateral-view/img_0612-apatosaurus-minimus-sacrum-right-lateral/”

A couple of posts back, when Matt was talking about turtle laminae, he included a photo of me in front of the skeleton of the giant turtle Archelon . Also in that photo is the tripod I was using — if you want to call it that — a tripod of altogether startling inadequacy.

Sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up. You may recall a story from the Onion Our Dumb Century book, allegedly from 1904, about the skeleton of Satan being discovered in Wyoming.