Cogprints

How to Fast-Forward Learned Serials to the Inevitable and the Optimal for Scholars and Scientists

Harnad, Stevan (1997) How to Fast-Forward Learned Serials to the Inevitable and the Optimal for Scholars and Scientists. [Journal (Paginated)]

Full text available as:

[img] HTML
23Kb

Abstract

There is no conflict of interest between a trade author and a trade publisher. The trade author's product is his text, and the trade publisher produces and sells it for him, so they can both make a fair profit. Both wish to protect their product from theft; both wish to restrict access to those have paid for it. Contrast this with the specialised scientific and scholarly research literature: The research has been funded by a governmental research supporting agency or a public institution of higher learning and the results are meant to be made publicly available, especially so that other specialists can read and build further research on it. Through this cycle of research/report/research, all of humanity benefits from the fruits of learned inquiry. But because of the substantial real cost of producing print on paper in the Gutenberg era, research publication had to adopt the same economic model as trade publication: Researchers, who were not writing to sell their words, and would gladly have given them away to reach the eyes of their fellow researchers the world over, in their joint enterprise of broadening human knowledge, were forced instead to make the "Faustian Bargain" of transferring copyright to their publishers, who would then try to recover their substantial expenses plus a fair profit by selling those words as if they had been produced for trade. Research libraries the world over paid the hefty price, purchasing all the important journals so that each individual article could find its own small, scattered readership in perpetuum. This era is now potentially over: The much lower cost and much broader reach of electronic publication can free research from the counterproductive access boundaries imposed by the trade model. Research grants can now easily afford to cover the minimal marginal cost of electronic publication, making the research literature free for all, as it was always meant to be, with the growth of human knowledge no longer needlessly restrained by the Faustian Bargain and humankind the greatest beneficiary.

Item Type:Journal (Paginated)
Keywords:preprint archives, electronic publishing, refereed publication, trade author, trade publisher
Subjects:Electronic Publishing > Copyright
Electronic Publishing > Economics
Electronic Publishing > Peer Review
ID Code:1695
Deposited By: Harnad, Stevan
Deposited On:18 Jul 2001
Last Modified:11 Mar 2011 08:54

References in Article

Select the SEEK icon to attempt to find the referenced article. If it does not appear to be in cogprints you will be forwarded to the paracite service. Poorly formated references will probably not work.

Garfield, E. (1991) Electronic journals and skywriting: A complementary medium for scientific communication? Current Contents 45: 9-11, November 11 1991

Garson, L.R. (1995) Investigations in Electronic Delivery of Chemical Information. To appear in: Proceedings of the International Conference on Refereed Electronic Journals: Toward a Consortium for Networked Publications, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, October 1-2, 1993.

Ginsparg, P. (1994) First Steps Towards Electronic Research Communication. Computers in Physics. (August, American Institute of Physics). 8(4): 390-396. http://xxx.lanl.gov/blurb/

Harnad, S. (1979) Creative disagreement. The Sciences 19: 18 - 20.

Harnad, S. (ed.) (1982) Peer commentary on peer review: A case study in scientific quality control, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Harnad, S. (1984) Commentaries, opinions and the growth of scientific knowledge. American Psychologist 39: 1497 - 1498.

Harnad, S. (1985) Rational disagreement in peer review. Science, Technology and Human Values 10: 55 - 62.

Harnad, S. (1986) Policing the Paper Chase. (Review of S. Lock, A difficult balance: Peer review in biomedical publication.) Nature 322: 24 - 5.

Harnad, S. (1990) Scholarly Skywriting and the Prepublication Continuum of Scientific Inquiry. Psychological Science 1: 342 - 343 (reprinted in Current Contents 45: 9-13, November 11 1991). ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/Harnad/HTML/harnad90.skywriting.html

Harnad, S. (1991) Post-Gutenberg Galaxy: The Fourth Revolution in the Means of Production of Knowledge. Public-Access Computer Systems Review 2 (1): 39 - 53 (also reprinted in PACS Annual Review Volume 2 1992; and in R. D. Mason (ed.) Computer Conferencing: The Last Word. Beach Holme Publishers, 1992; and in: M. Strangelove & D. Kovacs: Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters, and Academic Discussion Lists (A. Okerson, ed), 2nd edition. Washington, DC, Association of Research Libraries, Office of Scientific & Academic Publishing, 1992); and in Hungarian translation in REPLIKA 1994; and in Japanese in "Research and Development of Scholarly Information Dissemination Systems 1994-1995. http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad91.postgutenberg.html

Harnad, S. (1995a) Electronic Scholarly Publication: Quo Vadis? Serials Review 21(1) 78-80 (Reprinted in Managing Information 2(3) 31-33 1995) http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad95.quo.vadis.html

Harnad, S. (1995b) Implementing Peer Review on the Net: Scientific Quality Control in Scholarly Electronic Journals. In: Peek, R. & Newby, G. (Eds.) Electronic Publishing Confronts Academia: The Agenda for the Year 2000. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Pp. 103-118. http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad95.peer.review.html

Harnad, S. (1995c) The PostGutenberg Galaxy: How To Get There From Here. Information Society 11(4) 285-292. Also appeared in: Times Higher Education Supplement. Multimedia. P. vi. May 12 1995. http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/THES/thes.html

Harnad, S. (1995d) There's Plenty of Room in Cyberspace: Response to Fuller. Information Society 11(4) 305-324. Also appeared in: Times Higher Education Supplement. Multimedia. P. vi. June 9 1995. http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/THES/harful1.html

Harnad, S. (1995e) Universal FTP Archives for Esoteric Science and Scholarship: A Subversive Proposal. In: Ann Okerson & James O'Donnell (Eds.) Scholarly Journals at the Crossroads; A Subversive Proposal for Electronic Publishing. Washington, DC., Association of Research Libraries, June 1995. http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/subvert.html

Harnad, S. (1995f) Interactive Cognition: Exploring the Potential of Electronic Quote/Commenting. In: B. Gorayska & J.L. Mey (Eds.) Cognitive Technology: In Search of a Humane Interface. Elsevier. Pp. 397-414. http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad95.interactive.cognition.html

Harnad, S., Steklis, H. D. & Lancaster, J. B. (eds.) (1976) Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 280.

Hayes, P., Harnad, S., Perlis, D. & Block, N. (1992) Virtual Symposium on Virtual Mind. Minds and Machines 2: 217-238.

Hayes, P., Harnad, S., Perlis, D. & Block, N. (1992) Virtual Symposium on Virtual Mind. Minds and Machines 2: 217-238. http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad92.virtualmind.html

Mahoney, M.J. (1985) Open Exchange and Epistemic Progress. American Psychologist 40: 29 - 39.

Odlyzko, A.M. (1995) Tragic loss or good riddance? The impending demise of traditional scholarly journals, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (formerly International Journal of Man-Machine Studies), 42 (1995), 71-122. Condensed version in Notices of the Amercan Mathematical Society, 42 (Jan. 1995), 49-53. Available at URL http://www.research.att.com/~amo/doc/complete.html

Harnad, S. (1997) The Paper House of Cards (And Why It Is Taking So Long To Collapse). Ariadne 8: 6-7. http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ariadne/issue8/harnad/

Metadata

Repository Staff Only: item control page