From: "Nick Gill" <nickgill@cantab.net> To: nickgill@cantab.net CC: "Tom Stafford" <t.stafford@sheffield.ac.uk> Subject: Victory: Reed Elsevier gives in Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 17:12:40 +0100 (BST)
Dear friend,
Reed Elsevier today announced that they are "withdrawing from the defence industry". The reason they cite is the criticism that they have received from the scientific and medical community, as well as from their own employees.
Their press release can be found here: http://www.reed-elsevier.com/index.cfm?articleid=2084 A message from Sir Crispin Davis, CEO of Reed Elsevier, is copied at the bottom of this email.
This announcement represents a brilliant victory for all of you who have participated in the campaign against Reed Elsevier in a multitude of different ways. People have signed petitions, joined the boycott, written personal and collective letters, forwarded emails and told their friends, attended vigils, protested at Reed's AGM and the list goes on.
Unfortunately it would appear likely that Reed Elsevier will still organise the DSEi arms fair in London later this year. This arms fair is one of the biggest in the world - the 2005 event was targeted by protestors who highlighted the cluster bombs manufacturers who attended, as well as representatives of regimes with appalling human rights records. Nonetheless DSEi 2007 is likely to be one of the very last arms fairs organised by Reed Elsevier.
There are still good reasons for academics to dislike Reed Elsevier. I refer the interested reader to this excellent article by Prof John Baez: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/journals.html
Best wishes and many, many thanks for your support, Nick Gill
------------------------------------------------------------------------- Message from Sir Crispin Davis, Reed Elsevier CEO:
Dear Colleagues
We are announcing today that we plan to exit the defence exhibitions business.
Over the last year or so it has become increasingly clear that growing numbers of important customers and authors, particularly in the science and medical markets, have very real concerns with our involvement in this sector. They believe strongly that our presence here is incompatible with the aims of the science and medical communities. I am also very aware this is a view shared by a number of our employees. We have listened closely to these concerns and we have concluded that the long term interests of Reed Elsevier as a leading publisher of science, medical, legal and business content would be best served by withdrawing from defence exhibitions. We intend to complete the withdrawal during the second half of 2007.
We will of course fulfil all our contractual obligations with our partners in the defence business in the interim.
This has not been an easy decision. While the defence exhibitions business is quite small, accounting for around 0.5% of total Group revenue, it is a high quality business, with strong management and good growth. It is an important industry in ensuring countries have effective defence capability, as enshrined in the UN Charter. Our people in Reed Exhibitions have worked very hard to make these businesses successful and run them to the highest standards, for which I would like to thank them. Nevertheless, we believe the growing and genuine concerns of increasing numbers of our customers must be paramount.
Regards
************************************************ Marta Bunge Professor Emerita Dept of Mathematics and Statistics McGill University 805 Sherbrooke St. West Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 2K6 Office: (514) 398-3810 Home: (514) 935-3618 marta.bunge@mcgill.ca http://www.math.mcgill.ca/~bunge/ ************************************************