---- Jane Shevtsov <[email protected]> wrote: > I do know that such > > services as BioOne have greatly improved the bottom lines of some scholarly > > organizations, which in the long run makes papers more available, not less. > > > > Having more papers in existence is not the same as improving the > availability of each paper.
BioOne is not a paper publisher. It is an online, nonprofit service that makes papers available to readers, for a fee (or a subscription fee for organizations), and pays a portion to the publisher. It has made papers more easily available in that readers can find them on the web, and access them there if a member of an organization that has a subscription, or by paying the fee. One might consider it to be just another layer, and another cost. But it provides the instant gratification that we have come to want. It does not bring more papers into existence. It remits part of the fee to the journal, which is why I said that it has improved the bottom line of some societies. > > > > I guess in this one instance I am suggesting that free market is not so > > bad. > > > There's no free market here. A free market would exist if you could get the > same paper from several different "stores". You can get the same paper from different sources. You can subscribe to the journal in print or online. You can go to a library that subscribes to the journal. You can request a reprint from the author (who may have had to pay for it himself). You can use online sources that may or may not have a cost associated, depending on the journal and the source. You can use interlibrary loan. There are multiple media through which a journal article may be obtained. These different media have different costs in coin and effort associated with them. >From a reader's point of view, > a publisher is a monopoly. It's a natural monopoly -- but natural > monopolies must be regulated. > > > > If you really must have the paper the instant you locate it through the > > free search and free abstract mechanisms of the publishers, why then pay > > the asking price. Otherwise, use more traditional means of getting it. If > > publishers are getting the asking price, they will maintain it, or maybe > > ask a little more. If they are not getting it, they will back off. > > > > Now this is a fascinating point. How often do people actually pay the > publisher's asking price? Like you say, a reader can go to a university > library (public libraries rarely subscribe to technical journals), go to an > author's web site, or email the author. Heck, if you access the Web without > a university IP address, Google Scholar will automatically try to find free > copies of papers you search for. So is the $20 per paper price really > intended to make money directly, or to get people to do something else, > like joining ESA and buying a journal subscription? Which is a pretty good idea. It supports ESA (or whatever organization publishes the journal, not all ecological work is published in ESA journals), and it gives one an opportunity to regularly review the spectrum of work being done in Ecology. Joining provides a great many benefits beyond the opportunity to subscribe to the journals, as well. One of those benefits is eventual life membership in emeritus status, which I have earned and take advantage of. David McNeely
