Gee, Judith, after such a nice compliment (listing my site with ARGE and
ArchNET), how could I possibly resist?
If I were in your shoes, here's what I'd do. I would continue to make
abstracts freely available on the net, but I would charge for downloads;
and, in deference to Irina's point, I would use a sliding charge, depending
on.. place of origin, maybe? If you can get a university to kick in a
subscription, then make it free or relatively inexpensive to people with
that address. Or, anybody could buy a subscription if they wanted to, or
merely pay for articles they're interested in.
Of course, universities do like archive copies; maybe you could send along
an "archive" copy of the journal each quarter for a
subscription--electronic, of course. That's really what we
need--multiplicity of storage, for true archiving. If the Library of
Congress burned down, we'd still have copies of a lot of stuff in libraries
all over the world. Of course, it means electronic storage has to be
uniform--and for it to work, each library would have to limit the access to
their patrons somehow. And I know, the old argument about how the small
esoteric studies are just as important as the big flashy ones, and if you
start publishing based on popularity... Oh dear, I may be talking myself
right out of this.
Well, I think some permutation of this might just be do-able. It is a brave
new world.
kris
Kris Hirst
Office of the State Archaeologist
The University of Iowa
[log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]
<http://archaeology.miningco.com>
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|