Beall: ‘social justice warrior’ librarians ‘betraying’ academy

Yes, there are problems with some OA journals, just as there are (different) problems with some subscription journals. It's the subscription publishers' arrogance, price rises and high profit margins that annoy librarians. They are not motivated by a wish to destroy said publishers, rather by a wish to get affordable access to all who need it. Beall is an obsessive who should be ignored.

Completely agreed with Charles's comment. IMO, Beall does much more harm than good. See this detailed dissection of his paper "The Open-Access Movement is Not Really about Open Access" http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1500

Some perspective on predatory journals from a different librarian perspective: http://scienceblogs.com/confessions/2015/03/31/some-perspective-on-predatory-open-access-journals/

Until Beall provides evidence to back his assertions, I'll consider this to be more Fake News from librarianship's most special snowflake.

A quick survey of Beall's Twitter interactions with those who criticized him will show that he responds to legitimate questions and criticism with ad hominem (often sexist) attacks and irrelevant inferences. Any coverage of his "work" that does not address his inability to interact with those who disagree with him is woefully incomplete.

As usual, Beall's opinions are so totally at odds with all I learned in the last 10 years + from extensive readings and participation in online discussions on Open Access that I don't know how to begin. Most OA journals being deceptive; some being "functioning" at best? An "understanding” among librarians not to discuss publicly the problems of open access? Librarians promoting OA not for its virtues, but just to kill Elsevier? Journals reducing the time allocated to peer-review? At one point in the article, Beall is said to ask for "clear evidence". Quite strange for someone who never bothered himself to provide much evidence, if any, to support his bold statements. Once upon a time, I used to praise Beall for having single-handedly revealed the phenomenon of deceptive OA journals. Now I can only wish to stop hearing from him, and be able to forget him (and his rants).

Beall makes some very legitimate points. In our rush to adopt open access, we may be blind to some of its very big problems (just how much will I have to pay to get an article published?). Good, reliable open access is not going to be free or even cheap. I suspect that a good deal of the hostility towards him is that he does not hew to the "SJW" party line.

I think there is great similarity here between the academic publishing model and the music industry of the 1990s. Consumers got fed up with excessive prices for a product that the artists didn't see much return, also with a streamlined, minimal publishing process people became aware of the profit margins gained in the industry. This resulted in the rise of Napster, Pirate Bay etal - in research it has resulted in resistance from librarians and the rise of Sci Hub and #CanIHazPDF. Academics and the public are unable to access tax-funded research, academics are not properly rewarded for peer review and institutions have to buy back their own content. This is not fair in the slightest - giving everything away is not the answer, and publishers do have value, they have systems in place and esteem, but being tied to that esteem is like being tied to nostalgia. A new way that works for all needs forging, else publishers will find themselves increasingly under attack, not by the librarians, but growing numbers of academics - once that happens, publishers will really need to buck their ideas up.