Re: The July 6-7 NYAM "Freedom of Information" Meeting

From: Steve Hitchcock <sh94r_at_ECS.SOTON.AC.UK>
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 10:55:40 +0100

At 17:42 12/07/00 -0400, David Goodman wrote:
>Dear Pieter,
>
>How I wish it were true that
>
> > ... the
> > core (biomedical) literature gets subscribed to (or licensed) by
> practically all
> > academic libraries, [and therefore] access is for free for most
> academic end users.
>
>Unless you define this "core biomedical literature' very narrowly indeed, and
>"all academnic libraries" even more narrowly, it is very far from being true.

If it were more broadly true, that all academic journals could be
subscribed to by all academic libraries, what would we have? Almost the
ideal open archive.

While the former is clearly impossible now, the latter is distinctly
realisable, and the comment by Pieter Bolman, a high ranking publisher, can
be taken to be an implicit recommendation of what the academic community
should be working towards: "access is for free" - no caveats there.

Steve Hitchcock
Received on Mon Jan 24 2000 - 19:17:43 GMT