Email
Scepticism over the sale of academic referencing site Mendeley to Reed Elsevier is "unfounded", says the publishing group, which vows the London-based startup will continue to operate as its own company.
The sale follows months of speculation about the deal, initially exposed by TechCrunch in January. Although Elsevier did not disclose the sale price, it is thought to be up to $100m (£65m).
Mendeley was launched in 2008 by psychology academic Victor Henning and has more than 2 million users. The site, which combines reference managing with collaboration and networking tools, is known for its open ethos towards scientific publishing and for pioneering the altmetrics movement, an alternative way to measure an individual academic's research impact on the community.
In the wake of yesterday's announcement, the deal has received mixed reactions on blogs and social media, with many academics voicing their concern. One blogger asked whether the deal was a case of "Elsevier Acquires Mendeley ... or Mendeley Sells Itself to Elsevier", while others questioned whether the startup can now live up to its mission of being a truly open platform.
Danah Boyd, academic and senior researcher at Microsoft Research, tweeted: "Uggh. Elsevier has officially bought Mendeley. Time to export data and move on. Saaaaad. I really liked Mendeley", adding "Mendeley cannot fix Elsevier's reputation".
In February 2012, a petition to boycott the publisher was signed by more than 3,000 academics, angered over high journal prices, "bundle" sales to libraries and support for legislation such as the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA), widely perceived as an attempt to restrict the free exchange of information.
Speaking to the Guardian yesterday, Victor Henning was unphased by the angry reaction, saying: "It's quite understandable. Obviously when a startup gets acquired, people think, what is going to happen to the tools that I love and invested a lot of time in?" But, he said, Mendeley will stay close to its community and address their concerns.
A Q&A published on Mendeley's site assures that "Mendeley will not favour Elsevier content in our search and recommendation engine. Our discovery tools will remain focused on pointing you to the content that's the most relevant to you, no matter the publisher or the journal."
Former Mendeley employee Jason Hoyt, now co-founder of open access journal PeerJ, said in his blog: "Elsevier is smart and they are getting a huge team in Mendeley that knows how to operate like a startup … This [deal] gives Elsevier a major operational unit in London, which they did not have before."
But the sale sets up a new challenge for Mendeley to maintain its open ethos, he added. "I think it will be challenging for Mendeley to become a truly transformative tool in science."
Roderick Page, professor of taxonomy and the University of Glasgow, said the "horrified" Twitter comments are premature. The only "sensible" reaction is to congratulate Mendeley on their success, he says, "and marvel at how the cozy world of academic publishing has become a focus of innovation and revisit Mendeley in a year to see how things panned out.
"I think once the dust has settled we may see more nuanced discussions about what open really means, the challenge of creating innovative companies in an area where access to data is tightly controlled," said Page. "I think Elsevier's role as the bogieman of science publishing, while probably deserved, misses the point. They aren't really publishers – they are a knowledge company. The next battle will be not over whether we can read for free, but whether we can gain access to knowledge for free."
Will Elsevier's reputation among the academic community lose Mendeley members? No, according to Henning. "Elsevier has had criticism from members and researchers in the last year, but I do believe they have responded to them," he said. "They have more than doubled the number of open access journals and have and been very willing to listen."
Henning said: "We have seen Elsevier are just as obsessed as we are about making life easier for researchers, and ultimately, Mendeley is not going to change. We will still be the same company with the same people and the same office, with the same mission of making science more open and collaborative, and we now have support of the world's largest information service provider."
Olivier Dumon, managing director of Elsevier, said the partnership will need to support a divergent set of perspectives and to serve a variety of communities. But, he added, "we're totally aligned when it comes to the product, the vision and the benefits this union will deliver to the research community".
Is this deal good or bad news for the future of open access research? Share your thoughts in the comments below
This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more articles like this direct to your inbox, become a member of the Higher Education Network.
• This article was corrected on 11 April to reflect the fact the Reed-Elsevier is not a US-registered company
;