Geometry & Topology Publications : A Community Based Publishing Initiative

Abstract

We are primarily research mathematicians. It’s what we do. As research mathematicians we are ideally placed to see the grip that commercial publishers have established on our literature. We’d like to call it the Publisher’s Fork in analogy with Morton’s Fork. On the one hand, whilst carrying out our research, we need — indeed demand — total access to the literature. If we want to consult a paper, we will do whatever we need to do to find it ... in the old days, we would look in our filing cabinets, then colleagues cabinets, then search libraries or telephone more distant colleagues. These days we are more likely to start at the arXiv or Google before resorting to hard-copy search. The methods may have altered, but the purpose has not. We need to check or use previous work and nothing will stop us until we find it in some form or other. This is the first prong of the fork. The other is that, once we have produced a piece of new research, we want everyone to see it. We don’t hide it under a bushel; we want to give it away for all to see. We eagerly talk about it to colleagues and students, freely give lectures on it (in all gory detail if asked) etc. And we do the same for everyone else’s research, including anonymous refereeing, editorial advising etc. This is the second prong of the fork.