Brussels Declaration Stinks

It's always a sign that you're winning when the opposition start getting seriously desperate in their tactics. Here's a fine example:

Many declarations have been made about the need for particular business models in the STM information community. STM publishers have largely remained silent on these matters as the majority are agnostic about business models: what works, works. However, despite very significant investment and a massive rise in access to scientific information, our community continues to be beset by propositions and manifestos on the practice of scholarly publishing. Unfortunately the measures proposed have largely not been investigated or tested in any evidence-based manner that would pass rigorous peer review. In the light of this, and based on over ten years experience in the economics of online publishing and our longstanding collaboration with researchers and librarians, we have decided to publish a declaration of principles which we believe to be self-evident.

This so-called Brussels Declaration on STM Publishing is supported by the usual suspects - hello, Elsevier - but it's disappointing to see major university presses like those from Cambridge and Oxford putting their names to this arrant, self-interested nonsense.

The emphasis is squarely on business models, and gives little space to larger issues like the public's right to see the research that they pay for, or of researchers' rights to maximise the credit they gain from their work. Instead it consists of risible claims such as:

Publishers launch, sustain, promote and develop journals for the benefit of the scholarly community

Yeah, right, I can just imagine all the fraught meetings where publishers with furrowed brows mull over ways they can help the scholarly community. Yeah, I bet every waking thought is devoted to the subject. That's why the prices of journals have been rising at multiples of inflation for many years; that's why libraries are being bullied into buying group subscriptions, including titles they're not interested in. Purely for the benefit of the scholarly community, you understand.