JS and Ecolog:
Yes, but that's not the question.
For example, from the AAAS website:
"The content you requested requires a AAAS member subscription to this site
or Science Pay per Article purchase. To find out what content you currently
have access to - view your access rights. If you would like to recommend
that your institution subscribe to this content, please visit our Recommend
a Subscription page."
One can buy 24 hour access rights to a single "paper" for $15 ("cheaper"
than most, but it has no connection to the actual cost of providing the
service--it is no doubt justified by "recovering" the costs of publication).
Or join AAAS and every other organization (some suck as much as $40 or more
from individuals, not to mention the major fees required of institutions)
that holds rights to a paper one MIGHT be interested in. It adds up to an
onerous financial burden either way. Such policies effectively exclude any
riff-raff who might have a serious interest in a simple or complex subject,
and cross-fertilizers must be millionaires and willing to spend it. Such
heathen are conscribed to their local library--if they have one, putting
them at an enormous disadvantage to the "connected" and the "in."
It's competitive exclusion. My tax money supported the research, and I (and
I suggest that I and Dr. Voltolini and anyone else should have free access
to it, largely because it costs AAAS and the government no additional cost
to supply a download). If the law about copyrights to government-supported
publications has been outflanked by AAAS and others, it's time for a
presidential and/or legislative or court of law rethink, something on the
order of tax havens. Aside from the government angle, as a matter of
tradition and, considering that we have been transmogrified (apparently
while asleep) into a corporate feudal state, the "serfs" of the world should
rise up (or are they?) and see if they can coax a little noblesse oblige out
of the keepers of the intellectual gold. Scholarly publication, it seems,
has become more and more like a guild and less and less about the
advancement of knowledge for the benefit of humankind.
WT
PS: Here, copied from their website, is a sample of how the Library of the
University of California sees the issue of scholarly journals:
The Facts:
How the Crisis in Scholarly Communication Affects You
High costs are a barrier to access
Egregious and rising prices of scholarly journals place a barrier between
faculty work and their potential readers, putting research and teaching at
risk. In the Berkeley library, we have done our best to continue to provide
access to materials for our scholars but if economic and publishing trends
continue at the same pace, the Library may be required to cancel journals
and reduce the number of books purchased. Researchers, in turn, may find it
harder and harder to locate materials.
a.. The cost of scholarly publications is (and has been) rising at rates
that are several times higher than inflation.
b.. Significant price increases in journals every year decrease the
purchasing power of libraries overall. Serials with high inflation rates
negatively impact the overall acquisition of monographs and other serials.
a.. Monograph and Serials Expenditures (PDF)
Data from the Association for Research Libraries show that from 1986 to
2005:
a.. The average cost of serials rose 167%.
b.. The average cost of a monograph rose 81%.
c.. The consumer price index for this time period rose 78%.
d.. Bottom line: prices are going up, and libraries can't keep up.
b.. Sticker Shock: to put subscription costs in perspective, consider that
a one year subscription to some journals can cost as much as the price of a
car (from the UCSF Library).
a.. The number of new journals published every year is increasing.
b.. Journal inflation rates impact all disciplines:
LC Classification Average
cost/title
2002 Average
cost/title
2006 Percentage
increase
2002-2006
Anthropology $300 $416 39%
Chemistry $2432 $3254 34%
Engineering $1305 $1756 35%
History $132 $201 52%
Philosophy and Religion $156 $226 45%
See the annual Library Journal Periodical Price Survey for an analysis of
journal prices.
c.. There is a direct correlation between mergers and acquisitions among
publishers and rises in serial prices.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jane Shevtsov" <jane....@gmail.com>
To: "Wayne Tyson" <landr...@cox.net>
Cc: <ECOLOG-L@listserv.umd.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2009 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Open Access and Intellectual Imperialism Approval
required Re: [ECOLOG-L] Teaching Biostatistics !!!
It is sometimes not practical to publish in open access journals,
because of cost or other reasons. (I wish PLoS would say exactly under
what circumstances they waive publication charges.) But most of us
have web pages. Once you have a PDF of your article, put it on your
web page! Thanks to Google, anybody will be able to find it.
Jane Shevtsov
On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 7:56 PM, Wayne Tyson <landr...@cox.net> wrote:
(Suggested replacement post)
Ecolog:
"In my university I do not have access to literature sources like
Biological Abstracts for example to reach the authors and articles . . ."
This is an excellent example, unfortunately, of how pricing intellectual
resources out of range for "outsiders" is a moral indictment of much of
academia. This man--or any man or woman or child (especially) should never
have to hit a university firewall, be required to pay tens of dollars
($30, $40, and more) to download a pdf file, ad nauseam. Think of the
burdensome expense and effort required on the part of so many even to gain
the privilege of Internet access in the first place!
Those truly concerned about the future of the earth and its life, even
civilization, should realize that the history of intellectual development
is one of free exchange of ideas and information, not its conversion into
profit centers. It is not the struggling who should pay the comfortable,
it is the comfortable who benefit from free intellectual synergy that
compounds like a breeder-reactor, who should pay forward and backwards to
ensure rather than obstruct such exchange.
At long last, hath academia no sense of decency? Are there no institutions
out there sufficiently well endowed and clearly beneficiaries of the
wealth of intellectual struggle handed down from people like Dr. Voltolini
throughout history (and still do--Copernicus, Darwin . . .) who will turn
this embarrassing state of arrogant possessiveness around?
Can you imagine having to make this kind of request at every stage of your
own process of intellectual enquiry?
How is it possible that, this many years into one of the most
transformational achievements of human society, that Dr. Voltolini should
still be barred from journal access that costs zero to provide?
Why not, at the individual level, that academics simply boycott journals
which charge for access and publish in open access journals? While these
may not be perfect at the moment, might not such a second-stage
transformation accelerate their development and foster rather than retard
intellectual synergy?
WT
PS: David has suggested that I explain "how journals (e.g. those of the
Ecological Society) are supposed to pay to publish papers if nobody has to
pay to read them." This email is intended to illuminate the problem and
hear from others before deigning to suggest how all of the complexities of
this issue should be resolved. The first step, of course, is in
recognizing the problem or refuting the assertion that there is a problem.
I do not pretend, in as brief an email as possible and still state my
position unequivocally, to cover every aspect of the subject. I do,
however, know of institutions that have cancelled journal subscriptions. I
believe that very large institutions (e.g. the University of California
Library may have negotiated price reductions from some journals; I am not
up-to-date on this case, but the UC Library did raise the issue quite
vigorously a few years ago.
I will offer the following observations, and invite correction if they are
in error. I hope this helps
1. The major "clay paper" journals are VERY profitable.
2. Publishing in such journals is a political balancing act, not to
mention that author charges are often involved. (I am not against
reasonable author charges if they do not inhibit publication on the basis
of merit and are collected on the basis of the ability to pay by, and the
benefit to, sponsoring institutions.)
3. It is impossibly expensive for independent researchers or those whose
affiliations do not subscribe to Internet journal service to scan great
volumes of literature. Abstracts are wholly inadequate for literature
"review."
4. I recognize that publication costs must be met, but
scientific/scholarly/intellectual publications should be financed by the
"nobility," not enrich them. Peer reviews should be the obligation of the
reviewers to the discipline involved.
5. I suggested a boycott, but only intend that measure for those entities
looking at pdf downloads (for example) as ways to embellish their
bottom-lines, particularly when they gouge for them (charge out of
proportion to their actual marginal cost). Since intellectual articles are
in relatively scant demand, they are not likely to be priced according to
pricing theory anyway, so the benefiting institutions should pay the
actual costs--plus a margin for a cushion-endowment perhaps.
6. I do not think David or anyone else should have to be bothered with
sending materials to requestors who are deprived of equal
privileges/rights. While this is generous in the extreme, there is still a
faint sniff of (unintended) patronizing in that, and the requestor must be
driven to make the request in the first place. Most simply suffer in
silence.
7. My primary question to Ecolog remains "Is this intellectual imperialism
or not?"
8. One who is "in" simply cannot know what it is like to be "out."
----- Original Message -----
From: "VOLTOLINI" <jcvol...@uol.com.br>
To: <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU>
Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 2:17 PM
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Teaching Biostatistics !!!
> Dear friends,
>
> I am teaching Ecology and Biostatistics and I am working on different
> ideas to teach data analyses for Biology students.
>
> Now, my students will measure several moluscan shells from polluted and
> not polluted marine sites (it is a simulation!) and if they read about
> the subject they will be more interested in the analysis! Do you have
> articles about the "effect of pollution on shell size" ?
>
> In my university I do not have access to literature sources like
> Biological Abstracts for example to reach the authors and articles and
> thats why I requesting some articles.
>
> Thanks for any help!!!
>
> Voltolini
>
>
>
> Prof. Dr. J. C. VOLTOLINI
> Grupo de Estudos em Ecologia de Mamiferos (ECOMAM)
> UNITAU, Depto. Biologia, Taubate, SP. 12030-010.
> Grupo de pesquisa ECOMAM: http://jcvoltol.sites.uol.com.br/
> Fotos de projetos e cursos: http://jcvoltol.fotoblog.uol.com.br/
> Exemplo de um curso de ecologia de campo: http://trabiju.blogspot.com/
> Fotos artisticas: http://voltolini.fotos.net.br/texturas
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-------------
Jane Shevtsov
Ecology Ph.D. candidate, University of Georgia
co-founder, <www.worldbeyondborders.org>
Check out my blog, <http://perceivingwholes.blogspot.com>Perceiving Wholes
"Political power comes out of the look in people's eyes." --Kim
Stanley Robinson, _Blue Mars_
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