On the Likelihood of Academia “Taking Back” Scholarly Publishing

This week we've featured two posts (here and here) which discuss the impact that large commercial publishers are having on libraries. The question was raised in our Comments-if "big deals" and sometimes ruthless business practices are problematic for libraries and the academic community as a whole, then why continue to do business with them? As Rick Anderson responded, the marketplace remains somewhat distorted, with poor signaling between those paying for journals and those using journals (his post discussing this in detail is worth reading).