Re: Critique of STM Critique of NIH Proposal

[Joseph Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com>]

There appears to be a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation here
for publishers.  If they fail to make publications available for free or
at very low cost to developing countries, they are accused of greed or
worse.  If they do make publications available for free or at low cost,
they are crippling the nascent economy.  Either way, it's "Bad! Bad! Bad!"  
I mean, really!  The pharmaceutical industry gets beat up the same way.

I have a client in Eastern Europe that is prospering in part because they
understand that they will be a net importer of intellectual property for
years, probably decades, to come, and have built a strategy around that
hard truth.  One would not expect to build a rival to Wall St. in Omaha,
or a new Silicon Valley in New Haven.  Some regions simply get somewhere
first and the network effects of being the "first mover" carry them along.  
Rather than encouraging local publishing, it would be better to develop
entirely new niches and industries, as the Taiwanese have done with chip
manufacture and the mainland Chinese have done with textiles.  Innovate,
don't replicate.

Joe Esposito

On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 17:51:10 EST, Carol Priestley <cpriestley@inasp.info>
wrote:

> I regret that I am even later to the debate, and unsighted on the NIH
> proposal.  However, INASP experience of donations has been exactly as
> Sally describes.
> 
> Publishing in emerging economies is fragile at the best of times.  Large
> influxes of without cost books not only kill or damage local publishing
> but give policy makers the impression that they can cut library budgets to
> zero.
> 
> So, the challenges can be four-fold:
> 
> 1) market flooded with non-local publications
> 
> 2) local publishers devastated
> 
> 3) library budgets cut
> 
> 4) information loses a 'value' and an expectation that everything should
> be available without cost rises.
> 
> It is therefore vital to strengthen local publishing hand in hand with any
> opportunity of providing access.  In projects involving text- and/or
> reference books enormous strides can be made through co-publishing,
> assigning rights etc.  It was exactly with many of these issues in mind
> that the African Publishers' Network came to being over a decade ago.
> 
> Carol Priestley
> Director, International Network for the Availability of Scientific
> Publications (INASP)
> E-mail: cpriestley@inasp.info