Dear Stevan
But this still doesn't address the point of stable financing of the essential peer review process. This problem of stability is the main message I took from John Ewing's arcticle.
Subscriptions are a financial firewall, author charges per page or per article might work for some authors but not all, and funding by governments, science funding bodies or universities seems likely to be unsustainable in the long term (>5-10 years).
With best regards
Andrew Wray
>>> harnad_at_COGPRINTS.SOTON.AC.UK 10/08/01 11:30pm >>>
The "No Free Lunch" essay by John Ewing in the Chronicle of Higher
Education
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v48/i07/07b01401.htm
is unfortunately yet another instance of the conflation of the essentials
with the optional add-ons (frills).
Peer review is essential. Publishers' on-paper texts, PDF, indexing, reference
links etc. are frills. The only way to test the true market value of those
frills is to stop trying to hold the refereed full-text essentials
hostage to them by force-wrapping them together into one "product."
The issue is not high vs. low journal prices, not commercial vs. noncommercial
publishers. It is about freeing the essentials from the add-on frills.
See the thread:
Distinguishing the Essentials from the Optional Add-Ons
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1437.html
and also:
Harnad, S. (2001) Six Proposals for Freeing the Refereed Literature Ariadne 28 June 2001.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue28/minotaur/#1
http://www.cogsci.s oton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/ariadne.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------
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 the ongoing discussion of providing free
access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the
American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01):
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
or
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html
You may join the list at the amsci site.
Discussion can be posted to:
american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org
**********************************************************************
Institute of Physics
Registered charity No. 293851
76 Portland Place, London, W1B 1NT, England
IOP Publishing Limited
Registered in England under Registration No 467514.
Registered Office: Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE England
This e-mail message has been checked by MIMEsweeper using
F-Secure Anti-Virus for the presence of computer viruses.
**********************************************************************
Received on Tue Oct 09 2001 - 11:43:16 BST