Re: Correction (RE: Thatcher vs. Harnad)

["Pippa Smart" <pippa.smart@googlemail.com>]

I completely endorse what Joe says about lack of time and a need 
to filter information. Both conventional Online publication and 
various OA developments are doing precisely the opposite of this 
- multiple versions, on multiple platforms, of both high- and 
low-quality information. (conventional publishing is frequently 
removing barriers to publishing through the frequent launch of 
new titles)

One of the effects of web development is an increasing number of 
people "talking" and a reduced number of people "listening". 
People have less time to listen, but seem to always have time to 
talk! However, in a scholarly environment there is the fear that 
gems of information are never disseminated because the mainstream 
considers them unimportant. (e.g. the lack of articles on 
tropical diseases.)

If the volume of information ("people talking") continues to 
grow, and increasing numbers of repositories duplicate the 
content from journals (and/or provide different versions), then I 
think we are stuck with an increasing volume of information - so 
the question that I predict will be the "hot topic" in the future 
will be how information gets filtered. At the moment we rely on 
journals and ISI, plus the occasional service such as the 
"Faculty of 1000" from BioMedCentral - I thinkthat serivces like 
"Faculty of 1000" will continue to grow and may become the 
journals of the future - ? (ie publish then select)

Pippa Smart
Research Communication and Publishing Consultant
3 Park Lane, Appleton, Oxon OX13 5JT,UK
Tel: +44 1865 864255
Mob: +44 7775 627688
Skype: pippasmart
pippa.smart@googlemail.com


On 29/06/07, Joseph Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com > wrote:

> Barriers to authors are a good thing, not a bad thing.  While 
> no one would want a system where only the rich can publish 
> (which is not the case today) or only the rich can read (which 
> is not the case today), I would think no one would want a 
> system where any author (poster?) can lay equal claim on our 
> attention.  The question is how to apportion attention.  The 
> current dominant method, the user-pays publishing world, for 
> all its flaws, does a good job in allocating attention. Its 
> assumption is that people will measure the allocation of 
> attention by the amount of money they choose to spend on 
> objects of their attention.  Thus publishers compete to have 
> the most attention-worthy products. You pay attention to what 
> you pay for.
>
> I cancelled my subscription to The Economist not because I 
> can't afford it but because I don't have the time to read it. 
> It competes with everything else I have to read, a list that 
> continues to grow. The Economist is a very good publication, 
> but not good enough, at least to me.  I stopped reading it when 
> I began to subscribe to Peter Brantley's READ 2.0 mailgroup. 
> I had to choose, but not because of money.  Brantley could 
> charge three times the price of The Economist and I would still 
> subscribe.
>
> The image promulgated by some open access advocates is a world 
> of researchers with time on their hands.  They have nothing to 
> occupy themselves with since they can't get access to 
> everything that is published, everything that has been 
> published, and presumably anything that would be published if 
> publishers weren't such nasty SOBs who like to say no.  What's 
> better, a doubling of accessible materials or an added hour in 
> the workday to review materials already available.?
>
> Joe Esposito
>
> On 6/28/07, David Prosser < david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> > > Except to the degree that it raises barriers to publication for
> > > authors -- which, of course, it does.
> > Except, of course, where there are no author fees (in the case 
> > of over half of the journals listed in the DOAJ), or where the 
> > authors fees can be waived (BMC, PLoS, etc.).
> >
> > (Incidentally, I always find it intriguing that open access 
> > publication fees are described as barriers to publication, but 
> > we rarely hear the same being said of page charges, colour 
> > figure charges, etc. for publication-based journals.)
> >
> > David C Prosser PhD
> > Director
> > SPARC Europe
> > E-mail:   david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk