Re: Trust a high value in electronic content

[David Goodman <dgoodman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>]

Well, that example is saying that PNAS should be free to US citizens
(only), and Phil trans roy soc to UK , and CRASP to French, and so on.
Question: do they mean residents of Canada, or Canadian citizens wherever
they may be located, if they mean the later, then how do they propose to
administer it?.

The only similar example I can think of is theses from a state university
that shall go un-named, that are only accessible to their own students or
perhaps those visiting the campus.

I do not doubt the good intentions of those involved, but they have not
thought things through--if we all make the foreigners pay, I do not see
how any net progress is being made. I think the general concept is called
merchantilism, but I'm no expert.

On Mon, 16 Jun 2003, Heather Morrison wrote:

> There are two separate issues here:  free or open access versus paid
> subscriptions, and peer-review.
>
> By changing the economics of publishing from purchase to production, it is
> possible to combine peer review and high editorial standards with open
> access.  One example is the BioMedCentral model; in Canada, the National
> Research Council is making their peer-reviewed journals openly available
> to Canadian citizens.  I'm sure there are many more examples as well.
>
> On the other hand, there are many magazines and some academic journals
> which function on a paid subscription basis, which do not employ peer
> review.
>
> a personal opinion by,
>
> Heather Grace Morrison