On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 1:31 PM, <mcnee...@cox.net> wrote: > 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. >
And ironically, the source with the lowest cost charges the most! On a related but broader note, people might want to read John Perry Barlow's classic essay, "Selling Wine Without Bottles: The Economy of Ideas on the Global Net". http://virtualschool.edu/mon/ElectronicFrontier/WineWithoutBottles.html > 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. > Indeed, but I hope you're not saying that everyone who might read a few papers a year should necessarily join and subscribe. If they want to, great, but it shouldn't be a condition of access. Just to be clear, I've been an ESA member since 2005, when SEEDS awarded me a one-year membership along with a scholarship to attend the annual meeting. That felt pretty cool to an undergrad, and I've proudly maintained a membership ever since. This is the first time I'm considering not renewing, not because of ESA's own practices, but because of that letter, which supports not only society publishers but the worst actors in the industry. Jane Shevtsov -- ------------- Jane Shevtsov Ecology Ph.D. candidate, University of Georgia co-founder, www.worldbeyondborders.org "She has future plans and dreams at night. They tell her life is hard; she says 'That's all right'." --Faith Hill, "Wild One"
