Eric has hit on an important point here. Chemistry in particular sells a
lot of copies of journals to the industry, where the researchers are likely
to produce patents but not many papers. Whatever system is adopted to pay
for the esoteric publishing system (to use a term Stevan Harnad has stopped
using!), it is essential that the input of money to the system from the
chemical industry is maintained. Maybe Stevan Harnad will say that the
major chemical journals (at least) are outside his definition of purely
scholarly journals and fall in a similar category to Nature, Science, etc.
But then how about The Lancet and other similar medical journals -- they
sell lots of copies to rich doctors, who do not by any means all publish
research. Are they outside Stevan Harnad's definition too?
Fytton Rowland.
**********************************************************
Fytton Rowland, M.A., F.I.Inf.Sc., Lecturer,
Deputy Director of Undergraduate Programmes and
Programme Tutor for Publishing with English,
Department of Information Science,
Loughborough University,
Loughborough, Leics LE11 3TU, UK.
Phone +44 (0) 1509 223039 Fax +44 (0) 1509 223053
E-mail: J.F.Rowland_at_lboro.ac.uk
http://info.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/staff/frowland.html
**********************************************************
Received on Wed Feb 10 1999 - 19:17:43 GMT