Sentences to ponder [Research]

From the NY Times:

Possibly the biggest barrier to open access is that scientists are judged by where they have published when they compete for jobs, promotions, tenure and grant money. And the most prestigious journals, such as Cell, Nature and The Lancet, also tend to be the most protective of their content.

“The real people to blame are the leaders of the scientific community — Nobel scientists, heads of institutions, the presidents of universities — who are in a position to change things but have never faced up to this problem in part because they are beneficiaries of the system,” said Dr. Eisen. “University presidents love to tout how important their scientists are because they publish in these journals.”

As the title of column asks, should all papers be free? Academic publishing is probably the only line of business where the middleman receives the product for free, gets editors/reviewers to work on it for free and then re-sells it with a 25-39% net profit margin.