[This post is mostly a rehash of a comment I made on the last one, but I guess more people see posts than comments.

Regular readers will know that, as part of a broader strategy favouring open-access publishing, I no longer perform peer-reviews for non-open journals.  (I mentioned a recent example in a comment on the last article.)  I’ve had support for this stance from some impressive quarters; but also a fair bit of criticism from people who I respect.

I was directed to an article entitled Rookie Review on Nature Jobs by a tweet from Andy Farke (author of the Open Source Palaeontologist and an editor at PLoS ONE).  It has a lot of good stuff in it, once you get past the opening section.

Folks.  Just don’t do this.

A package!  A package has arrived!

{.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-4525 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“4525” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2011/10/10/sauropod-sighting/mystery-dino/” orig-file=“https://svpow.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/mystery-dino.jpg” orig-size=“1200,1600” comments-opened=“1” image-meta=“{"aperture":"5.5","credit":"","camera":"COOLPIX

{.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-4516 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“4516” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2011/10/06/on-display-this-weekend-lacms-monster-alligator/giant-gator-1/” orig-file=“https://svpow.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/giant-gator-1.jpg” orig-size=“1704,2272” comments-opened=“1”

Two things to briefly report. First, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has just announced its new policy that “all published EPSRC-funded research articles submitted for publication from 1 September 2011 must be made available on an Open Access basis”.  This policy brings EPSRC in line with other UK Research Councils (EPSRC is one of seven), the Wellcome Trust, and US funding bodies such as the NSF and NIH.

{.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-4506 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“4506” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2011/10/04/new-on-the-sidebar-human-anatomy-resources/brachial-plexus-mjw-2011-2/” orig-file=“https://svpow.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/brachial-plexus-mjw-2011.jpg” orig-size=“1343,1060” comments-opened=“1”

Just  a quick note to let anyone who’s not on the Dinosaur Mailing List know that the DML has spawned a new list dedicated to the history of palaeontology.  It’s hosted at Google Groups, so you have the choice of subscribing to it as a mailing list or reading it as a forum.

You don’t need to read this. You can read Scott Aaronson’s Review of The Access Principle and Tim O’Reilly’s Piracy is Progressive Taxation and connect the blindingly obvious dots. OTOH, Aaronson and O’Reilly wrote their pieces for the same reason I’m writing this one: some things are not blinding obvious to everyone. And sometimes the situation makes me mad enough to take a swing. So here goes.