RE: Cost of coursepacks: Harvard Crimson article

["Rich Dodenhoff" <rdodenhoff@aspet.org>]

You might save some time by checking with the publisher.  In a collection
of articles on one topic, several are bound to come from one journal or
publisher, and contacting the publisher may be easier than tracking down
individual authors.

Many journals permit classroom photocopying at no fee as long as students
are charged no more than the cost of making the copies.  This is usually
printed somewhere in the journal or spelled out on the journal's web site.  
It shouldn't be hard to find.

There are many journals that make their content freely available after
some time period, so links to those articles could be made available if
the library doesn't have a subscription.  You don't need permission to
link to freely accessible content, and why not use the final, edited,
formatted version with all the bells and whistles if its available?

In addition, there are journals that allow libraries to put an electronic
copy of the article on reserve for students for easy access. We permit
this all the time--it's no different in our view from putting a paper copy
on reserve.

Please don't forget that there are still many scholarly society publishers
whose primary mission is disseminating knowledge rather than making money,
and they welcome classroom use of their journals.

Richard Dodenhoff
Journals Director
American Society for Pharmacology and
  Experimental Therapeutics
9650 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20814-3995
301.634.7997 (p) / 301.634.7061 (f)

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
heatherm@eln.bc.ca
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 10:17 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Cost of coursepacks: Harvard Crimson article

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