Elsevier is an honorable company...

Woodcut on the Death of Julius Caesar

Sometimes you need a play to understand the times we live in.  So, I present to you an excerpt from The Death of Open Access:

ANTONY:

Friends, Scholars, Countrymen, lend me your browser's window!

I have come to bury Open Access, not to praise it.

The evil that ideas do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their dismissal;

So let it be with Open Access.  The noble Elsevier

Hath told you Open Access was ambitious;

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Open Access answer'd it.

Here, under the leave of Elsevier and the rest-

For Elsevier is an honorable company;

So are they all, all honorable companies-

Come I to speak in Open Access' funeral.

It was my friend, faithful and just to me;

But Elsevier says it was ambitious,

And Elsevier is an honorable company.

It hath brought many articles home to Rome,

Whose ransoms did the general idea-coffers fill.

Did this in Open Access seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Open Access hath wept;

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Elsevier says it was ambitious,

And Elsevier is an honorable company.

You all did see that on the Internet

I thrice presented it with kingly paywall access,

Which it did thrice refuse.  Was this ambition?

Yet Elsevier says it was ambitious,

And Elsevier is an honorable company.

I do not speak to disprove what Elsevier spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love it once, not without cause;

What cause withholds you then to mourn for it?

O judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason.  Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Open Access,

And I must pause till it come back to me.

Help Wanted

via The Year of Mud

Seems like anything goes these days.  In light of the recent brew-ha-ha regarding live-tweeting at conferences, look at what I found in a 'Help Wanted' ad this afternoon (details removed to protect the innocent):

Heading to (REDACTED) conference and need help in keeping my ideas in the room.  I mean it- not one word uttered from my lips should leave the room, be it in note, electronic, or thought form.  As such, I'm looking for an intellectual property enforcer.  Candidate must be familiar with Twitter, but in no way use it in the service of stealing ideas.  Retweets are stolen ideas, and candidates must be willing to find every person who tweets or retweets what I say at (REDACTED) conference in order to threaten them with legal action and/or name calling if they surreptitiously steal one of my ideas, which they most certainly did if they tweet at my presentation.  Please don't tweet this add, as someone might steal my idea and hire you before I can do so.  I take my position as an enlightener of minds very seriously, and thus cannot abide by the fact that so many of my very helpful ideas could be stolen and given to people for free on an odious platform like Twitter.  Feel free to follow me on Twitter at (REDACTED) or email me at (REDACTED), but please don't tell anyone about this ad- I'm growing steadily more convinced that my ideas could be stolen through 'loose lips' as well.