RE: Monopolies in publishing

["Harvey Brenneise" <HBrenne@MPHI.org>]

--Jan, I can only guess as I no longer purchase physics journals (I'm in a
small public health library).  But I used to be, and I can offer these
possibilities.

*They "aren't the same" in that the preprint may not have yet been peer
reviewed and subject to further editing.
   
*One don't have a "thing" on the shelf to point to with the pride of
"ownership."

*Pressure from the academic department in question.

*"Accreditation".

The past practice of librarianship has been very much, I think, label
conscious, and some publishers have taken advantage of this in setting
their prices just as clothing manufacturers have.  Many librarians have
not yet made the paradigm shift to a "mostly electronic" library from a
"mostly paper" one.

Harvey Brenneise
Michigan Public Health Institute
hbrenne@mphi.org
____

Jan Velterop wrote:

>Terry, You're absolutely right. In physics, articles do seem to exist in
>two places. But they're not exactly the same. In Archiv, they are
>preprints without a journal 'label sown into them', and in the journals
>they obviously have this 'label'. The biggest puzzle to me is, too, why 
>do large numbers of librarians fork out often substantial sums, basically
>just for the labels. Maybe the labels are worth it. Perhaps one of the
>librarians on this list might want to comment.