Re: Nature Journals: Versioning Vicissitudes

["Anthony Watkinson" <anthony.watkinson@btinternet.com>]

I am puzzled by David Goodman's first contention which is that the second
part of Nature, the research papers, has no/not much value and that there
would be zero subscribers for this content on its own at half the current
price. Nature is a strange amalgam of a research journal in a limited
number of fields and a news and comment magazine for the science
community. There is no reason why it should exist in this form except
history. The research material is cutting edge and the scientists in the
fields it covers want to publish in it and other scientists want to read
what is written in it. Would they not expect their libraries to pay for
it? I cannot see that the news and comment is "essential". I personally
prefer Science to keep in touch.

Anthony Watkinson
14, Park Street, Bladon, Woodstock,
Oxon, England OX20 1RW
phone +44 1993 811561 and fax 1993  810067

----- Original Message -----
From: David Goodman <dgoodman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2000 7:46 PM
Subject: Re: Nature Journals: Versioning Vicissitudes

> To clarify two important points:
>
> 1. The "front of the book" matter in Nature is in their case every bit as
> essential--if not more so--than the rest. If they were to publish a
> printed edition without it at say half price, I think they would get
> exactly zero subscribers, personal or institutional.
>
> 2. When a university purchases campus wide access to a journal for all its
> students and faculty to a journal, what they are buying is the use of that
> content for all academic purposes by all students enrolled in all courses.
> For a professor to include links to that in material for a specific course
> is not a special additional benefit, but is implied by the basic license.
> We need not urge other publishers to follow the example--We have been
> buying this all along. I suppose the provision is included in licenses to
> avoid ambiguity, but a license which prohibited it would not be a site
> license in the first place.
>
> This seems so patently obvious to me, that I would like to hear from any
> publisher who disagrees. (I recognize that the situation for distance
> learning may be more complicated.)
>
> David Goodman, Princeton University Biology Library
> dgoodman@princeton.edu            609-258-3235