On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 10:07 AM, glen e. p. ropella < [email protected]> wrote:
> Thus spake Steve Smith circa 10/02/2009 07:40 AM: > > But I understand Glen being careful about sending it out to a list that > archives > > such that the paper is effectively been placed in a public repository. > > [...] > > That said, I hope Glen (and others) *will* freely circulate their work to > their > > colleagues according to their own judgement about what supports their > work (and > > Science in general) vs what undermines it (breaking contracts or good > faith > > understandings?). > > Exactly. To be clear, I won't re-publish the article. But I'm happy to > send a copy directly to any colleague who asks. > > This came up, again, this week with a pre-undergraduate researcher, ie unfunded and unaffiliated, who wanted articles on <subject>. I searched arxiv.org, plos.org, and google scholar without finding much on <subject> that wasn't encumbered by a king's ransom in use fees, however it turned out that <researcher> at <university> had a web page of publications which linked to pdfs of his publications, of the publications of all his students, of his out of print book, dissertations, etc, et anything else that could further the progress in his field of research. My recommendation was to google author names to find other online archives of papers and follow the trail of pdfs. Life is short, the mean time to expiration of a good ideas even shorter when starved for companionship, the mean number of readers of a scientific paper who actually make something out of the experience is probably less than 1, probably much less than 1. You can collaborate with the publishers, make your work artificially scarce, so they can sell it again, and again, and again to those who can pay. Or you can actively attempt to find a reader who will make something of your work. The publisher doesn't care if anyone ever makes anything of your work, they priced the book or the journal so their business expected to make a profit the day of publication. That's why the books and journals are getting more expensive so fast that libraries are spending so much time figuring out what not to buy, what subscriptions to cancel, what departments can't defend themselves. Which is making it all still more expensive for those who continue to buy. And those online copies aren't priced at what the market will bear, they're priced to make subscriptions look like a bargain. If you don't actively promote the availability of your work, of your discipline, of your ideas online, then who will? Disciplines which make it possible for a pre-undergraduate to find and to read and to learn about their ideas online will recruit pre-undergraduates. Disciplines which abet the publishers in their desire to collect rents in perpetuity on human knowledge will fare differently. Which side are you on, boys? -- rec --
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