At 12:23 PM 7/14/97 +1000, Tony Barry wrote:
>The payment regime is still a mess. I suspect as digital cash schemes take
>off the publishers preferred solution will be direct end user access to
>their services at an article level delivery, relying on volume sales rather
>than few high cost subscription sales to libraries which presently supports
>most academic publishers particularly in STM.
This may be the case, but I would be interested to see the evidence.
National site licences and, in the US, state-wide site licences, seem to be
moving in the opposite direction. Ultimately this is not a technology or a
payment issue, but an economic one, i.e what is the least riskiest way to
generate the highest profit. Direct user access and payment is a more
market-oriented solution than institutional subscriptions - not many
publishers would prefer that!
Steve Hitchcock
Open Journal Project
Multimedia Research Group, Department of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44 (01)703 594479 Fax: +44 (01)703 592865
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Open Journal Project Web page http://journals.ecs.soton.ac.uk/
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