My Guardian Science Blog…
Just a very quick post to direct you to a piece by me on the topic of Open Access and the Academic Journal Racket, which appeared today in the Grauniad Guardian Science Blog.
Here’s a taster, but for the whole thing you’ll have to go here.
In the Dark 
April 21, 2012 at 2:24 pm
“First we must clear up any misunderstanding that the Elsevier of 1927 was the same house that had existed in the seventeenth century and which had gained fame largely thanks to the cousins Bonaventura and Abraham Elzevier, printers for the Academy in Leiden. The last business of this legendary publishing family was wound up in the beginning of the eighteenth century. But the name remained. As no one could lay claim to it, when Jacob Robbers opened his bookshop and publishing house in 1880, on the Boompjes in Rotterdam, he considered it opportune for developing the business. A while later, he thought it would be even more opportune to establish himself in Amsterdam, the centre of the Dutch book trade”.
from page 53, Chapter 4, “Elsevier’s Venture”, in “Dutch Messengers, A History of Science Publishing, 1930-1980” by Cornelius D. Andriesse, (2008).
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GaqVtLFzFyEC
April 21, 2012 at 2:49 pm
Yes, I know. Someone commented to the same effect on the Guardian piece.
All it does is further emphasize that the current company is trading on a reputation it doesn’t deserve.
April 22, 2012 at 4:27 pm
A Mr Robbers? I couldn’t possibly comment.