Re: The True Cost of the Essentials (Implementing Peer Review)

From: David Goodman dgoodman_at_Princeton.EDU <dgoodman_at_PRINCETON.EDU>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 12:34:28 -0400

About the likely factors, from the standpoint of a librarian:

Librarians will not cancel the conventional journals if they are used. They
will (at least if they are rational) cancel them when they show no use. It
is also of course likely that they will cancel them because of cost,
especially if the cost per use figure is particularly high.

What good librarians should and do look at, is not primarily the opinions
of their users, but the actual beavior of their users. Expensive unused
publications get canceled. The most any library can expect is enough money
to buy what the users do use, and not also everything they think they are
using or think they ought to be using. We do not buy for our own personal
reading; we buy as agents for the users to acquire what they need in the
format they prefer.

This applies no matter what route the progress towards a free system takes.
All it needs is for people to make use of it and stop using at least some
of the conventional publications. We keep measuring use and many of us are
eagerly anticipating the change, but we cannot act until the scientists do.
Received on Wed Jan 03 2001 - 19:17:43 GMT