A story in Nature about the finances of open access journal publisher the Public Library of Science (PLoS) has attracted criticism in the blogosphere. Nature Publishing Group publishes traditional subscription journals, and its news piece has been criticised for lacking objectivity. Declan Butler’s story began, “PLoS, the poster child of the open access publishing movement, is . . . relying on bulk, cheap publishing of lower quality papers to subsidise its handful of high quality flagship journals.” He went on to mention PLoS One’s approach to peer review and PLoS’s use of unpaid staff. A selection of criticisms is at http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/07/on_the_nature_of_plos.php.
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