Scholarship for Sale

["William Walsh" <libwdw@langate.gsu.edu>]

The was an article on this Futures Project report in yesterday's
Chronicle.  It was titled "Public Mission of State Colleges Is Endangered
by Increasing Competition and Privatization."

The following excerpt may be of interest:

Meanwhile, market pressures have begun to undermine the integrity of the
academic scholarship on which the nation relies for its medical
discoveries, technological breakthroughs, and other innovations. The
country's university-based researchers have long been the envy of the
world, renowned for their intellectual freedom and productivity.

However, over the last several years, corporations have bought up hundreds
of leading scholarly journals, pricing them beyond the means of many
academic libraries and individual scholars. And as the corporate
sponsorship of research grows, so do the demands to control both the
research itself and the dissemination of results.

Thus, a Tufts University study released several years ago reported
that*out of almost 800 scientific papers*one-third of the time a chief
author had a financial interest in the company sponsoring the research,
and most of those interests were undisclosed.

The report is online at:
http://www.futuresproject.org/publications/Correcting_Course.pdf

Bill

William Walsh
Head, Acquisitions Department
Georgia State University Library
100 Decatur Street, SE
Atlanta, GA 30303
Phone: 404.651.2149
Fax: 404.651.2148
Email:  wwalsh@gsu.edu