[This message was delayed by a change of return address
which denied me access to lis-elib]
I have read Tom Graham's original message, and the subsequent contributions, with
some interest; but I am not sure that I am any clearer about where we are going.
"Free" publication is I think a red herring. Ian Mowat's points are very relevant, and I can
add to them the fact that Computer Centre Directors are going to be wary of academics
occupying increasing disk space and causing increased netwrok traffic by setting up
uncontrolled electronic journals -- so you might end up paying your computer centre
rather than a publisher!
In any case, the more information there is available, the more important will become
indexing and (particularly) abstracting services -- and these will never be products of
research funding. We tend, of course, to call them online databases, and cut them out
of the EJ argument; but what is currently on BIDS we all used to use in print format,
ditto CA online, etc.
The BIDS case raises one of the difficult paradoxes in this area: payment of a standard
subscription (as with a print journal) causes problems for low-use small institutions; yet
payment by use leads to unpredictability of costs and discouragement of use. I'm not
sure that there is a way around that, but it is a problem which I think needs addressing.
Because of the nature of abstracts, it cannot really be solved by what I think is a
possible answer to themore conventional EJ: free access but charging for download.
If the charge were comparable to photocopying charges, it could be passed on to the
end user with no real detriment to any party other than the photocopier suppliers (and
I wouldn't weep for them!) and the revenue of some libraries, which might be more of
a problem. Of course, one would still need to address the technical problem of making
such a downloaded copy itself non-copiable!
Any charging system seems to me to have to address four principles:
Respect of the rights of the originator
A fair return for any added value from a "publisher"
Predictability of costs
Whether information should always be free at the point of use
It is also perhaps worth remembering that publishing is, and always has been, a risk
business; and that no journal, electronic or printed, has a divine right to survive. We can
set up systems to give the eLib journals a fair chance, but the outcome will be at least
as dependent on the quality as on the pricing structure.
Ian Lovecy
Cyfarwyddwr / Director
Gwasanaethau Gwybodaeth / Information Services
Prifysgol Cymru Bangor University of Wales
Ffon / tel 01248 382960
Ffacs / fax 01248 383826
eMail [log in to unmask]
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