Evilsevier Seeks Victims

According to internal documents acquired by LP in a drugs for information deal, Dutch publishing giant Evilsevier has hit upon a new way to engorge itself on the fat of the publishing land: enlisting librarians in their quest to buy out their puny competitors.

Using the innocuous-sounding name "Help Evilsevier Help You," the plan is to offer a set of tools to librarians that would permit them to submit the names of journals and publishers to Evilsevier, in essence suggesting to the journal behemoth that they should take them over. Evilsevier is developing a set of handouts and Web tools for their upcoming campaign, preying on librarians' desire to have everything spoonfed to them. For example, one flyer asks "does your journal publisher even know what an OpenURL is," then proceeds to outline how by being subsumed by Science Indirect, a journal goes through a transformation that makes it play nice with all library systems. Also available will be a Firefox browser extension that will allow one-click submission of potential victims, making the ratting out of a small publisher as easy as doing a Google search.

The Association of American Libraries, upon learning of the plan, responded through a spokesperson with unmitigated glee. "After years of Evilsevier bashing, I think we've reached a point where that hysteria has played out and we've accepted the fact that they do a great service to libraries," noted AAL spokesperson Ima Stuhlpigeon, as she sipped coffee from her Evilsevier mug. "After all, wouldn't it be so much easier if we didn't have to deal with all of these pathetic little publishers?"