Henderson begins his reply by describing "documented," "appropriate," "logical," and "understandable" as "objective" notions. At the risk of seeming postmodern, I will have to argue that *not one of them* can be "objective" either in the sense that they mean the same thing to every observer or that they account for every consideration. The facile notion that "scientific" and "objective" are interchangeable terms is, I believe, no longer commonplace even in the scientific community.
The argument about economies of scale certainly has been bruited here, there, and everywhere, but pardon me if I find it nonsensical. For over twenty-five years I have edited a journal that has a circulation of less than 500; it runs to about 500 pages per annual issue and costs subscribers less than $40 an issue. Why? Simple; most of the preprinting work is provided FREE because of a belief the the dissemination of knowledge and argument should not be a bottom-line proposition. The real question is not economies of scale but economy AND scale. For instance, what are the costs that are debited to a particular journal and are they as low as they can be (which brings up other issues that I discuss below). As to the "relevance" of Barschall's conclusions, let that be determined by the varied and various reactions of interested parties. Henderson 's complaint is that Barschall "covertly" represented an interested party. Secrecy is a dangerously two-edged concept for the commercial publishers to bring into play here. For my part, and as a historian interested in why and how things happen, I would very much like to see following: 1/ financial details concerning the costs--necessary and otherwise--of all the higher-priced journals published in the commercial sphere 2/ correspondence and 1099 forms (oh yes, they are neede!) for and between commercial publishers, editors, and members of editorial boards concerning remuneration in order to determine whether such expenses are appropriate and necessary--to use a couple of loaded terms. 3/ the results--and the underlying methodology--of any tests carried out by commercial publishers, particularly any that have been subjected to the same scrutiny as Barschall's 4/ any internal correspondence dealing with any and all of these issues--similar to that, perhaps, uncovered in the investigations of tobacco companies Without these data, no one is able to use such terms as "covertly" and "parlayed" and "some old rivalry," however much they might suspect their reality. I'm pretty sure that not only historians but librarians would like some of these details in place of interminable assertions are to altruistic motives. I don't doubt that innovators have problems in most fields. Just the same, the journal I began was--and is--non-mainstream, but I found no difficulties in securing the aegis of a professional organization back in the mid-1970s. Was I just lucky? Good? Or was it simply that there were no commercial publications knocking at my door with offers I couldn't refuse. The argument that universities failed to fund libraries adequately enough to subscribe without fuss to whatever journal at whatever price came down the road is sheer sophistry. Why should they have? Why should universites--especially public universities--support the notion of cost-sufficiency in a world otherwise dominated by marketplace values. True, it is not the fault of commercial publishers that librarians bit many bullets over many years and generally made no concerted efforts to apprise the contributor-users of the non-marketplace-priced journals. The addiction to complete runs and the reluctance to cancel standing orders--or publishers' gerrymandered series--meant that monographs became the victims, with all the implications. What strikes me as decidedly odd in all this is the postmortem fixation with the work of Henry Barschall. Henderson is determined to argue that Barschall came to his work with a predisposition to find what he did find. I for one agree entirely with that premise. But that is hardly the issue. No one--myself and Henderson included--does *not* come to a set of circumstances without a sense of what is to be accomplished and this is nowhere more true than when wielding numbers. The question though is to what degree such biases affect the outcome. No work of quantitative that I know of has been subjected to more grueling and sustained scrutiny than Barschall's study. The result of all this scrutiny: he *demonstrated" what he set out to demonstrate. This can only lead us to conclude that the data he sought were there for the finding. In contrast, most such extended stdismally failed tests put to their work. I don't know whether Barschall was paid for his work--nor for that matter whether Henderson is being paid for his--but again, payment is no *necessary* indication of biased results. In the early years of African historiograpohy, many ingenuous fieldworkers sought information from informants by paying for it. This was bad practice and could only impugn the flood of results. HOWEVER, if further scrutiny demonstrated that certain data were correct, the issue of payment then falls into the sociological rather than the epistemological domain. Any number of similar examples might be adduced, but why pile Pelion upon Ossa? The point is simply that impugning Barshall's motives is wasted effort and a very poor substitute indeed for impugning his results.
