Re: In the news (Georgia State)

[Karl Bridges <kbridges@uvm.edu>]

The purpose of publishing research is to increase the quality and 
quantity of knowledge available to the human species. The idea 
that research is published as a form of advertising is not 
accurate.  It's quite clear that universities, through their 
press offices et al, USE research to advertise the university, 
attract students, attract donors, etc.  However, that's quite 
different from the idea that advertising, in and of itself, is a 
reason universities publish research. Quite frankly, if my school 
wanted only advertising we could get better (and cheaper) results 
by hiring an ad agency than investing $100 million plus yearly 
into research.

Karl Bridges
University of Vermont

Quoting Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>:

> Under this logic, it makes no rational economic sense for any 
> university to support a press that publishes books and journals 
> consisting 90% of writing done by faculty elsewhere than its 
> own campus. But the system of scholarly communication has 
> always been a cooperative enterprise--which brings us back to 
> the actual subject header here about Georgia State, which under 
> my interpretation is playing as a "free rider" on the system 
> and not contributing its "fair" share.  If we go in the 
> direction that Krichel seems to imply we should, Georgia State 
> will get its just deserts by having no press to publish works 
> by its own faculty. Of course, presses who are really annoyed 
> by GSU's misbehavior can always opt not to publish any works by 
> its faculty anyway. Tit-for-tat, so to speak.
>
>
>> Thomas Krichel writes:
>>
>> Research is published to advertize skills of the academic staff
>> of an institution. Institutions are in the business to maximise
>> attention to the research results that are produced locally. When
>> the library of institution buys access to a journal, over 90% of
>> the material in that journal will contain material coming from
>> other institutions, then it subsidizes attention to research
>> results from other instutions. You don't need a PhD in economics
>> to see that this makes no economic sense. A rational institution
>> will pay nothing for research produced elsewhere and will spend
>> all its efforts to make its results widely available.
>
> Sanford G. Thatcher, Director
> Penn State University Press