Conflict of interest in PubMedCentral indexing

It’s been my experience that I wildly disagree with some of the fundamental values of the folks at Scholarly Kitchen, but I get a lot out of their posts and arguments.  Their most recent post on a possible scandal at Pub Med Central is a case in point:

Last October, based on strong circumstantial and some direct evidence, I wrote that PMC had aided eLife by providing technical, consultative, technology, and indexing support in a manner that was highly unusual, and specifically designed to help eLife gain an advantage in the marketplace. I also speculated that mismanagement of conflicts-of-interest with Wellcome appeared to have had a bearing on eLife’s preferential treatment. Given these telling email and document exchanges, we now have direct evidence that PMC knowingly gave eLife significant and valuable launch assistance at eLife’s request, secretly agreeing to use US taxpayer-funded resources and salaries to abet the launch of an online journal funded by three multi-billion-dollar philanthropies (two of which are headquartered outside the US), while colluding with these entities to minimize their chances of being accused of impropriety and avoiding direct questions about how this occurred once the community was aware of the results of the deal. In addition, PMC knowingly was stiff-arming other publishers requesting indexing and inclusion.

In a way, this is a painful post to write. Many of the people in these emails I know and respect. However, the reputation of PubMed, the NCBI, the NLM, and the NIH as objective, fair, and unbiased registrars of scientific information for public use may have been severely compromised. These records and other facts strongly suggest there is cronyism, preferential treatment, an unclear set of standards, conflicts of interest, and abuse of authority. There are certainly many questions to be answered.

I don’t agree that privately funded journal editors make the best gatekeepers.  I don’t agree that we need gatekeepers.  But we definitely need watchdogs, and I appreciate Scholarly Kitchen for providing that.