This has just come in on the britarch list.  I'm forwarding it
for info, rather than to start a hare running.  Sorry if you are
annoyed by forwarded messages like this.

Roger Fern.

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Wed, 28 Nov 2001 07:06:26 +0100
Reply-to:      British archaeology discussion list <[log in to unmask]>
From:          Paul Barford <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:       The demise of the freely accessible e-journal (longish)
To:            [log in to unmask]

I have been moved to reply to the announcement that all users of the
e-journal Internet Archaeology will now have to pay a fee of 39.50 GBP for
the undoubted pleasure of getting past the contents pages of issues 2-11+.

I am sure that there are good reasons for these decisions, we were told the
original grant ran out and the editorial team were unable to interest other
potential financers in the significance of the project. We have seen the
requests for opinions from users. We are told that the costs of running it
are high. I am sure this is all true.

I also have no doubts that when access was free, IA was a very useful and
important tool; it allowed all potential readers access to all sorts of (and
one might also say assorted) information on different topics to anyone with
a web connection at any time and at minimal cost. This surely was the whole
idea of an e-journal in the first place. And a very good idea it is. There
is no denying that in the form of an e-journal it is possible to present
data in new ways, searchable, hyperlinked, one could put in multimedia
presentations and so on. But then, one can do all these things on a normal
website. And access to these is free.

One justification for an e-journal was the relatively low cost of
dissemination of information in this way compared with the costs of paper
publication. This then allowed IA to accept for 'publication' material in a
form which would - for example by reason of its length - be difficult to
find a place for in a conventional paper journal. The recent announcement of
the "e-monograph"  "Behaviour and belief in mortuary ritual: attitudes to
the disposal of the dead in southern Britain 3500bc-AD43" by Peter Bristow
is a case in point. From the blurb, it appears that this is a work which has
already been published by conventional means, and the main justification of
republishing it on the Web given by the journal editors seems to be that one
can search it by computer instead of the conventional way using one's own
eyes. Nowhere is it explained though why this information has to be
published in IA and not as a separate website. The logic of republishing in
this form of something of this size already available in another medium form
escapes me when it is accompanied by a statement to the effect that  "this
is all getting too expensive to provide the service we have up to now". This
seems to me a rather unfortunate juxtaposition.

The imposition of subscriptions to access articles in former numbers raises
a number of issues, what about the authors who submitted articles to issues
2-10 under the impression that they were contributing to a journal which
would be freely accessible, only to find that access is now closed to the
elite few who have another free forty quid to fork out on journal
subscriptions on top of what they already subscribe to (by definition, all
professionals or institutions)? Some of these articles have been added as
links to a number of websites (including those of the original authors
themselves) but are no longer accessible from those websites. I wonder why
(apart from the obvious financial benefits) the decision was taken to change
the status of issues that were already in the public domain and not impose
the new tariffs from issue 11?

What future then is there for a true e-journal, one which will carry
articles of a high quality, peer reviewed and disseminated via the web to
any and all who may care to read and download them? Will the imposition of a
fee for the use of IA encourage or hinder its use? Is the format of
e-journal available only to subscribers a viable proposition in competition
with individual websites? While I wish IA every success in its attempts to
remain solvent, somehow I am pessimistic about its future.

Paul Barford

----- Original Message -----
From: Judith Winters <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 23, 2001 4:44 PM
Subject: Mortuary ritual - Internet Archaeology 11 opens

[snip]
>
> Please note that access to Internet Archaeology is now by subscription
> only. See   http://intarch.ac.uk/subscriptions.html   for full details.
>
> Regards,
> Judith
>
> .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
> Judith Winters, Editor - Internet Archaeology http://intarch.ac.uk
> Department of Archaeology, University of York,
> King's Manor, YO1 7EP,  UK
>
--------------------------------------
Roger W. Fern,
27 Ladybank,
Chapel Park,
Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE5 1UJ.
(0191) 267-3074   [log in to unmask]
--------------------------------------