L"Annee Philologique

["Cox, Bonnie" <bjcox@email.uky.edu>]

I have continued to follow the discussion of L'Annee Philologique on the
list. I received the following information from a member of our Classics
faculty here. As he says, it is second-hand, but it seems trustworthy and
reliable to me. Although admittedly anecdotal, I thought it worth sharing
with the list.

"Back in March, an old college friend who is well-placed among scholars of
early Christianity and an associate of the French School and Academy at
Rome, came for a visit in between lecture engagements in N. Carolina and
Chicago.  While he was here, I showed him the library and we got to
talking about... the contract problems with L'ann�e philologique (AP)
on-line, i.e., the requirement that any copyright suits be tried in France
while Kentucky (and other states) require that, in agreements with state
institutions, these be tried in the respective states.  Now as it happens,
my friend is also close friends with Eric Rebaillard, who is -- or was --
on the staff of AP and responsible for their initiative to publish
electronically.  He said he'd get in touch with Eric and see what he could
find out about how things really stood with this issue.  This past Friday,
May 10, I received a call from my friend.  He mentioned that he spoke with
Eric about the venue issue, and that Eric got all Gallic on him and
insisted that although several American universities brought up this
problem, the agreement had to be that the suits would be tried in France.
My friend said there was no way around it when Eric pronounced in such
fashion.  What was of even greater significance, however, was that Eric
said he was going to leave AP because the electronic project was cutting
too deeply into the time and energy he had for his own research.  With
this, my friend noted that since the AP staff is really a mere handful and
that Eric was the only person on the staff with any computer savvy, that
the electronic initiative might simply stall or stall out."


Bonnie Jean Cox
Collection Services /Licensing
2-1 William T. Young Library
Lexington, KY 40506-0456
Telephone: 859-257-0500x2053
FAX  859-257-8379
EMail: bjcox@uky.edu

"We're all in this alone." -- Lily Tomlin