Werner raises a good point, for some scientists it simply is not reasonable to pay to read articles in their field. The result is that science becomes concentrated in wealthy countries and labs with institutional subscriptions. If you are not in such a place, you just don't have access.
I don't think that science should be just for the wealthy. Those of us with institutional subscriptions should be willing to download and transfer papers to our less fortunate colleagues. I find it a bit embarassing that I have to rely on a former student to help me keep abreast of developments in my field, but that is the way that scientific publishing works. It is a lousy system, and we should do our best to subvert it. Bill Silvert ----- Original Message ----- From: "DeerLab" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2005 7:39 PM Subject: Re: [Tws-l] online journals > When I am asked to pay 1-2 days-worth of salary to download a paper, > I just move on. From what I gather, many colleagues are in the same > boat. There are some good journals which supposedly on purpose do not > even provide an email contact for the author, that is unacceptable > because it is counterproductive. > > Werner Flueck > National Research Council > Argentina
