Re: Cost of coursepacks: Harvard Crimson article

[heatherm@eln.bc.ca]

Sam - you're so right! Which brings up an interesting idea for a research
project - perhaps suitable for a Harvard student?  That is - how many
times has a Harvard student paid for the information in these coursepacks,
whether directly, or indirectly, anyway?

Some of this research will have been funded from the public purse and/or
charitable organizations, to which the student (or family) will have
contributed, through taxes and/or donations.

Some of this research will have involved Harvard faculty, whether in
conducting the research, editing, or peer review - tasks at least
partially supported through tuition fees, right?

Then, of course, Harvard will have either print or electronic versions of
the articles paid through subscription.  Sometimes both, no doubt.

With more than 90% of journals giving the "green light" for
self-archiving, and the institutional repository movement rapidly growing
- are some of the articles in the coursepacks already freely available?  
Certainly, the vast majority of article could be made freely available, if
the authors choose.  Here's an option for the Harvard bookstore:  rather
than automatically copying and paying royalties on all those articles -
why not a quick e-mail to the authors, asking if they have self-archived a
copy?

Graduate students at Harvard may well have contributed to the research or
writing for some of these articles, and/or the peer review.  Or, they may
have participated in studies as experimental subjects.

If anyone does take up this research challenge...hope all this counting
does not make you dizzy!

cheers,

Heather Morrison

[The value we add as librarians does not depend on whether we purchase the
information we provide.  Anonymous].

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 20:20:08 EST liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu wrote:
> Very true, but even if the author does not self-archive, and if the
> university has an electronic subscription to the journal, the course
> reading list with links can still be created at no additional direct cost
> to the student. Or if the url's are impossibly long just point to the
> title in the library catalog, (if the record contains a link to the
> electronic resource)	and ask the students to follow the links.
> 
> Sam Trosow
> University of Western Ontario