Re: history of the DDG

On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:32:23 +0100, Martin Brown
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:49:57 GMT, James Arthur
<bogusabdsqy@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:
On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:06:14 GMT, James Arthur
<bogusabdsqy@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:
On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:44:12 GMT, James Arthur wrote:

I don't think journals have any right to appoint
themselves middlemen between publicly-funded research
and the public good.

They impede progress and the free flow of information.
And they overcharge to boot.

They are in business to make money for their shareholders. They are most
definitely not charities. Prestigious paper journals are still important
for disseminating new research (although many have online versions too).

So what do you propose to do - nationalise them?

Well, I'm not going to fight you on that score. I'd rather it's all
immediately in the public domain. Perhaps, with universities taking
action and with scientists also taking individual action, there will
eventually be a sea change. There is already some impact.

But I'll also repeat again that I've never had to pay for a single
paper; and I've asked for papers that were only announced and hadn't
even "hit the stands" yet. So while I agree with the idea of "free
flow of information" as did every scientist I've talked with about
this, I'm not sure about the "impede progress" part of your comment.
The fact is, it seems from my experience anyway, that one does not
have to pay for ANY published article. Just write the authors.

Jon
It's not just the money it's the awkward access. It becomes
impossible to quickly collect, peruse, and compare papers.

Don't you have libraries in the USA?

I agree it's a pain. No argument from me.

For example, it's usually faster to fetch one of my books than
to find something on the web.

I usually try the web first. Keyword indexing is a marvellous thing.

A test: It's great you can get articles free by asking, but
how many articles have you skipped because of the hassle?

I just put them on a list for next time I am at a suitable library. You
can get quite good at guessing which journals will be free access.

And, in theory, it's illegal to disseminate them--they're
copyrighted by the journals.

Indeed. Your point?

I don't want to clutter up John's thread with this,

Oh, be my guest.


I
was just pointing out several ways in which access
delayed = access effectively denied. One example was
the difference in bandwidth between flipping through a
book, and accessing the info on the web.

If papers are a hassle to get, people are a lot less
likely to bother.

I don't think it makes all that much difference. A lot of stuff is
online in some form or other if you know where to look. Tetchy journals
are not public access or are available only at arm & leg PPV rates
unless you have a subscription or a tame librarian.

Many institutions have web pages with simplified versions of the current
research topics and often the same images as are in the journals.

A few big companies have locked up the journal business. They get the
papers peer-reviewed for free, charge the authors "page fees" (like,
kilobucks per page), copyright the material, make sure the abstracts
are vague, and charge users to see it.

I think that is a bit unfair. Unless things have changed mightily the
cost for academic journal publication is nominal unless you want to
sponsor the front cover, have full colour plates or something exotic
like that. See for example the Nature author guidelines:

http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/gta/

Section 5.9 Costs - £700 per for the first colour plate, £250
thereafter, but if the editor thinks the colour image is essential
non-payment will not prevent publication.

And the scientists play along, for unscientific reasons.

Scientists publish in the most prestigious widely circulated journal for
the work they are doing. There is little point in sending major new work
to some obscure journal in Outer Mongolia that noone ever reads.

Regards,
Martin Brown
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

Yes, and the "journal publishers" used this to invert the normal
Author - Publisher financial relationship, and con Authors to pay (who
just passed it on as a cost to the funding source).

.

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