“…publishers whose commitment to investors competes with the goals of scholars…”

AnthroSource planners explain (ca. 2004) why corporate publishing partners would  compromise AAA values and ethical commitments:

The decision to engage a university press [California] in these processes is consequential in the overall picture of rising costs of scholarly journals [= serials crisis] and indicative of AAA’s commitment to the principles of a scholars’ portal as articulated by librarians in 1999. Importantly, in the agreement with UC Press, AAA retains ownership and control over all substantive elements of the AAA scholarly communications program, including content and pricing. Therefore, AAA will continue to make decisions based on the values of the Association. Other professional societies and associations, including some in related fields of anthropology, have chosen publishers whose commitment to investors competes with the goals of scholars and thereby compromises the ability to create a true scholars’ portal.

The whole hopeful and sensible article is:  Suzanne Calpestri and Bonnie A. Nardi (2004) “Creating a Shared Vision for AnthroSource.” Anthropology News. 45(3):9. The recent history of scholarly communications work in anthropology is full of sad irony. Calpestri was then the chair of the AnthroSource Steering Committee and Nardi was a member of that group. Their article suggests that they were reflecting principles shared by the committee as a whole. The values that they are suggesting are (were?) fundamental to AAA members are (were?): (1) concern about the sustainability of libraries, (2) progressive intellectual property principles (promoting/protecting author’s rights), (3) opposition to corporate enclosure of anthropological scholarship, (4) treating scholarship and government information as a “public good”, (5) resistance to marketing bias, (6) resistance to commercial values, and (7) avoidance of “unfair” user costs.