Re: Does More Mean More?

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

David, while there are indeed finite resources in the universe, 
authors are not among them.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Goodman" <dgoodman@Princeton.EDU>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2006 5:50 PM
Subject: Re: Does More Mean More?

> Oddly enough, Joe is correct, but not for the subjects he is 
> writing about. What his view of the factors does apply to, is 
> monographs in the humanities. There is certainly in those 
> fields a lack of publishing opportunities,which can only be met 
> by direct or indirect subsidies.  Direct subsidies to the 
> author or the press helps everyone, by making the works 
> possible and perhaps affordable by individuals. The extensive 
> discussion on this has been parallel to the discussions on OA, 
> but remains separate. The key differene is that thereade of a 
> monograph typically expects to read it through, which is not 
> usually the case for a scientific journal (or even a scholarly 
> humanities journal.)
>
> Another specialized area whee he is correct is the publication 
> of large retrospective collections, once on microfilm, now of 
> course elctronic. These are limited by the small number of 
> libraries able to pay the very high costs. (Their current 
> success is the result of grant funding--it's the least 
> controversal way to make grants in politically sensitive 
> areas.)
>
> Science periodicals don't work that way. There has not been a 
> shortage of publishing opportunities for 50 years; people might 
> optimistically start new journals, but this ifsuccessful is 
> just rearranging the same articles--sometimes in a useful way, 
> like some of the Nature monthlies.
>
> Joe has in offline correspondance specified the Annual Review 
> type publication as an example of his thesis; reviews can 
> duplicate the same topics and do not depend on getting some 
> scientific results to publish.
>
> Even here, where it isn't primary scientific publication, he's 
> partially wrong. The rise of the Annual Revew was accompanied 
> by the decline of other review periodicals, such as the many 
> Advances in ... series from Academic Press.
>
> There are ways in which a publisher can add to the total number 
> of articles produced. Most notable is the duplicate publication 
> Phil Davis has so notably detected.
>
> What I think would hapen if library budgets were doubled, is 
> the doubling of prices for the journals.
>
> Dr. David Goodman
> Associate Professor
> Palmer School of Library and Information Science
> Long Island University
>
> dgoodman@liu.edu