RE: response to Mr. Esposito's comments

["Stuhr, Rebecca" <STUHRR@Grinnell.EDU>]

Mr. Esposito's comments are overly broad and much too cynical.  As a
librarian in a small, research oriented liberal arts college, I see a huge
demand for published scholarship from our faculty and from the
students--on topics ranging the disciplines.  Despite the growing nimbers
of online (subscription based or open access) journals and our own
moderately healthy paper holdings I routinely work with students who find
the perfect articles that fall into neither category.  Certainly authors
are beneficiaries of publication, but there is also an active scholarly
community established and emerging using the publications.  I imagine that
scientists will grow accostumed to setting aside a few hundred to a few
thousand dollars from their grants for the purpose of publishing the
results of their research.  Scholars in the humanities may not have these
large grants, but I imagine that the cost of publishing a journal with a
subscription of anywhere from $40.00/year to $150/year will not cost in
the few thousand dollar per article range.  Something reasonable will
develop in the humanities and even struggling university press publishers
will find a formula that allows them to continue to make their ends
meet--if not to become powerhouses in the publishing industry.


Rebecca Stuhr
Collection Development and Preservation
  Librarian
Grinnell College Libraries 
Grinnell, Iowa 50112
stuhrr@grinnell.edu/641-269-3674

> From: "Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@worldnet.att.net>
> To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
> Subject: Reply to post from Fred Friend
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> Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 18:31:38 EST
> 
> I respectfully submit to Mr. Friend that the "huge unsatisfied demand" is
> not for access to academic information but for more outlets for one's own
> publications.  The problem is one of oversupply, which chokes the
> distribution system and makes (some) publishers look like crooks.  Since
> in the academic arena it is authors, not readers, who are the principal
> beneficiaries of publication, an author-pays model makes a great deal of
> sense, especially as it would serve to moderate production and thereby
> provide some relief to the beleaguered reader.
> 
> Joe Esposito