Re: Help for challenged readers

[brs4@lehigh.edu]

Joe, Great questions, which I hope will spur discussion.

I think both that universities need to learn the ins and outs of journal
publishing, and also that publishers can still play a role in facilitating
that effort (through providing software, data clean-up services,
consultancy services, newsletters/magazines about technical issues,
whatever).

It's like anything in life; one has to do something about it oneself to
get anywhere and see progress. That is, universities are going to need to
crack the serials pricing issue *themselves* if there is to be any
progress with OA.

Incidentally, if there is any question about the capability of
universities to execute digital projects, see the projects on the lower
right corner of: http://www.lehigh.edu/library/ Not journals, but you get
the idea. Digitization technical expertise exists on university campuses.

Brian Simboli

Quoting "Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@worldnet.att.net>:

> To a hypothetical situation sketched by Brian Simboli, a world with
> "universal open access to the results of research," Stevan Harnad writes
> that "it will be a world in which the traditional journal still exists."
> Some of us are slower than others.  Will someone please tell me why
> librarians would continue to subscribe to journals whose content is
> available for free elsewhere?  Isn't one of the reasons that many
> librarians are advocating OA that it would reduce costs to libraries?  
> And if libraries stop purchasing subscriptions, please explain to me why
> publishers, at least commercial publishers, would continue to invest money
> in publishing journals.  
> 
> If libraries would continue to purchase subscriptions not because of the
> content itself but because of added value (added linking, perhaps, or
> search mechanisms) that journals publishers bring to the content, would
> the publishers not then move their investment away from the creation of
> content to the development of tools that make content more valuable (in
> other words, every publisher becomes a rival to Google)?  So in what sense
> does the traditional journal still exist?
> 
> I think OA is a wonderful idea, but I don't think I am alone in wondering
> what else will change in the world if and when it happens.
> 
> Joe Esposito