Pretty much everyone has heard of the political theories of the nineteenth century philosopher Karl Marx. Now I am not for a split second suggesting anything about how right or wrong he was or anything about the impact on history of his ideas. I would simply like to observe that his view of how society is/should and will be run appears to be being born out in current trends in mathematics.
For the uninitiated, a little background first. As with most sciences the preservation and continuation of the subject is done through a system of peer reviewed journals. A mathematician wishing to tell the world about his mathematics will submit their paper to a journal for free. The journal will then find other mathematicians in a similar area to read the paper for free. If they believe that paper should be accepted, possibly after a few changes, they will advise the journal to accept the paper. Often the journal will then charge libraries lots of money to have access to it.
Now this has been the case for a very lone time, and before the advent of modern computing it was entirely appropriate for this behaviour to happen, afterall printing and distribution costs have to be met somehow. In recent times however, larger publishing companies have been charging increasing amount of money for their journals. Naturally high prices represent a barrier to access the information within the journals and restriction on academic freedom are bad for mathematics.
Gradually mathematicians have been getting increasingly disatisfied with this situation. This issue became most apparant following the highly publicised resignation of the entire editorial board of the Journal of Topology. This was later followed by the mass resignation of the editorial board of the journal K-theory.
This strikes me as something of a bourgeoisie revolution. This naturally raises the question, what of the proletariat revolution?
The culture of mathematics is changing. Mathematicians are gradually getting used to the idea of looking at papers online, particularly as the arXiv gains popularity. There is even talk on Tim Gower’s blog of “tricks wiki” for the real lifeblood of mathematics, not just the end product, to be transmitted over the web. More agressivly the Banff protocal calls on mathematicians to completely boycott the profiteers. Most significantly of course there already exist several free online journals with new ones being founded all the time. These clearly represent the future.
The prestigue attached to hosting a free journal is sufficiently great that almost any respectable university will fall over themselves to host such a thing. Given how good it looks on a CV up and coming mathematicians are usually more than happy to help edit and referee for a journal. In the age of the internet it almost too easy to publish such a thing.
So when will the proletariat revolution be? Arguably when a profiteering giant of publishing goes under, a small victory will have been won. In the mean time no free online journal has sufficient presteige to lead anyone to victory. In the next couple fo decades some of these journal will hopefully become better established and by in the next couple of decades it may (hopefully) almost become the norm to submit to such a journal. What’s really needed is for someone to submit a major paper such as the Odd Order Theorem to a free journal. Once that has happened the journal in question will almost certainly gain such a level of respectability that the world will no longer be able to deny the future of mathematics journal publishing. Afterall it worked for the Pacific Journal of Mathematics.
Comment, Commendation, Castigations…
August 6, 2008 at 5:48 pm |
Excellent and interesting blog. A mutual friend of ours is working on the triks wiki. Not sure when it will come about…
August 6, 2008 at 9:26 pm |
While I agree with some of your observations, such as the fact that the “peer reviewed journal” system is going through a revolution (by gradually eliminating the need for large publishing companies in this “business”), I quite don’t think that this revolution should be characterized as being bourgeoise. And, I quite don’t see how a proletariat revolution is in the making. I would argue that the current revolution (that you mention in your post) is more anarchic in nature. The fact that earlier we had large publishing companies as monopolies which assumed the role of (an illegitimate!) authority in this business coupled with the fact that this authority is now gradually being questioned for its (needless) role exemplifies the idea that illegitimate authority should be questioned and certainly dismantled if it cannot account for its role/position in a free society.
August 7, 2008 at 8:55 am |
Hi Vishal,
I must admit I am perhaps exadurating matters a little here, but you must surely agree with the following
1. The topology/K-theory resignations are the first significant retaliations against the big publishers (bar possibly the Banff potocol, unless you can name something I’m unaware of??!? I’m happy to be corrected).
2. Nothing significant changed after the above events bar one or two big journals are suddenly being in trouble. I suppose this is what I really mean by a “bougeoise” revolution – an apparant early revolution with less impact than one may hope from a revolution.
3. I think it is almost inevitable that a major paper will one day be submitted to a free online journal. (A pseudo-example more recent than the odd order paper is Perelman’s “proof” of the Poincare conjecture – three preprints submitted to the arxiv and nothing else.) When this happens there will almost certainly be “trouble up mill”, though I admit free journals will have to gain substantial prestige before it does (though I do seem to be noticing an increasing number of not-so-shoddy names publishing papers in these journals) and its more likely that the event will mark a substantial shift than a cataclismic revolution.
4. Once free journals do become the norm its difficult to see how the profiteers can continue. Journals containing papers with advertising banners in them?
Thanks for the feedback.
28.
August 16, 2008 at 2:58 am |
Oh, Thanks! Really funny. keep working!