Joy,
Below are my comments on the 'Academic Authors' Draft Declaration'. As is
clear I am not wholly in favour of it in its present form. My main problem
with it is that it assumes academic writers (who write to dissemination
awareness of their work) are the same as 'Writers' who write primarily to
earn their living.
I had intended to quote in detail from the 'Draft Declaration' so others
on the list could follow my arguments but it is too long. If other list
members are interested the actual text upon which I am commenting can be
found at:
http://www.alcs.co.uk/declaration.htm
Finally, I'm curious about the meeting that composed this 'Declaration'.
Who were the attendees?
Regards,
John Smith,
University of Kent at Canterbury.
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'Academic Authors' Draft Declaration' - Comments
Paragraph number:
2.2 Academic writers (in the main) are not professional Writers. They are
researchers, teachers, etc. This means they should not aim to be paid,
primarily, for their writing. If they wish to be seen and treated as
Writers they should be charging either 'by the word' or writing on a
contractual basis.
2.3 "copyright ownership ... is as important as remuneration for
authorship". What has "remuneration" to do with academic writing? Most
acdemic writers only write to disseminate their ideas/discoveries and to
get credit from their peers. This may lead to an increase in their
"remuneration" but as lecturers/researchers not writers. I'm also
concerned with "control the use of copyright material" - this sounds like
increased bureaucracy and an attempt to limit the free dissemination of
knowledge (the discovery of which has usually been paid for out of the
public purse).
2.4 Again there is the confusion between people who write to disseminate
awareness of their real work, and Writers, whose profession is writing.
3.1 "Creators"? The writer of the average paper is not Shakespeare. They
need to be recognised for their contribution to their research area - not
for their talent as a writer.
3.3 "at a fee"? Is this reasonable? If one writes whilst being paid by
others, often after using facilities provided by others to do the thing
described in the published item, should one also be paid a fee on top of
the salary one was being paid during the research and the writing stage?
(I should point out I have been paid such a fee but that was for a book
published by a commercial publisher and my then employer expected to get
royalties on my work. In this case an additional 'reward' seemed
reasonable. I have also written as an 'academic' (for free), and on a
contractual basis for a fee in advance.)
3.4 The last sentance of this paragraph looks like more work for the
lawyers. How much academic writing really has enough sales potential to
justify all this effort?
3.7 How many academic authors have agents? The last sentance is very
worrying. It means more work for the lawyers, agents, the ALCS and smacks
of 'Big Brother'. Any such 'trackable' paper should also carry the heath
warning 'You are being watched if you read this'.
3.8 No doubt the favoured "one stop shop" is the ALCS.
4.2 In most cases that market value is zero or less. The majority of
academic papers are read by so few that they would not be written except
that the writer needs, for personal, academic and professional reasons, to
disseminate information about the work done.
4.3 See my comments on 3.3.
4.4 This just provides work for bureaucrats. For most academic authors the
cost of maintaining the bureaucracy will exceed any possible earnings.
4.5 Can we be sure that traditional 'publishers' will have any role in the
net-based academic publishing models of the future? For one alternate
model see my paper at:
http://www.ukc.ac.uk/library/ICCC/papers/deconjnl.htm
On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, Joy Foster wrote:
> Dear List Members
>
> Just a quick reminder:
>
> Friday 13th March is the deadline for comments on the Academic Authors'
> Draft Declaration.
>
> The Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) welcomes comments on
> this document from list members involved in providing access to scholarly
> information.
>
> The draft can be found at:
>
> http://www.alcs.co.uk/declaration1.html
>
> Thanks in anticipation.
>
>
> Joy F A Foster
> Manager, HE and Academic Libraries Project
> Authors' Licensing & Collecting Society
> Marlborough Court, 14-18 Holborn
> London EC1N 2LE
>
>
>
>
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