Most of the points made by Albert Henderson do not require rebuttal,
because the vested and conflicting interests are just too obvious. I
will accordingly only comment where there might be some information to
add.
In response to scientists' pleas for the broadest possible
dissemination
of their research findings in the online-era, Henderson suggests:
> ah> Your institution probably located itself in Philadelphia
> ah> because of the tremendous intellectual resources available
> ah> there. You should be able to use local libraries. Your
> ah> librarian should be able to get photocopies via interlibrary
> ah> loan at no cost to you.
> ah> Have you thought of presenting your paper at a meeting?
> ah> That is how dissemination of research has been speeded
> ah> since before the Royal Society started.
In response to scientists' concerns about the conflict of interest
inherent in attempts to to retain the on-paper/for-fee model in the
online/for-free era, Henderson suggests:
> ah> If you want the recognition of your peers, you have to
> ah> recognize their interests in protecting publishers' investment
> ah> in formal dissemination that will be covered by indexes and
> ah> abstracts for many years.
The open archives, with full-text archiving, will no doubt induce even
greater restructuring for secondary (abstract/index) publishers than it
will for primary (refereed journal) publishers. The latter will still
have a niche as quality-control/certification (QC/C) service providers;
but the Web's burgeoning native search resources (once the refereed
literature is in the interoperable open archives) are likely to give the
for-fee secondaries a (free) run for their money!
http://www.openarchives.org/
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Stevan Harnad harnad_at_cogsci.soton.ac.uk
Professor of Cognitive Science harnad_at_princeton.edu
Department of Electronics and phone: +44 23-80 592-582
Computer Science fax: +44 23-80 592-865
University of Southampton
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
Highfield, Southampton
http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/
SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM
NOTE: A complete archive of this ongoing discussion of providing free
access to the refereed journal literature is available at the American
Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00):
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
You may join the list at the site above.
Discussion can be posted to:
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Received on Mon Jan 24 2000 - 19:17:43 GMT