Re: copyright expiration as a spur to creativity

From: Bert Boyce <lsboyc[_at_]lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 09:01:35 -0500

On 9/27/98, Bernard Katz <bkatz[_at_]uoguelph.ca> wrote:
>
> I would suggest that there is a distinct difference between *journal*
> publication in the humanities, social sciences and sciences than there
> is in other areas of periodical publication -- I mean theat scholars
> and researchers would like the widest possible dissemination of their
> papers and couldn't care the least about other folks copying them. In
> fact they are happy to have this happen! But the distribution system
> for STM&S (scientific, technical, medical & scholarly) journals has become
> more and more limited to fewer and fewer commercial publishers (at least
> in the STM fields)
> ...
> As Karsten Self indicated, scholars really do not need the commercial
> publishers who have been cranking up the costs (again, for whatever
> reasons). The *authors* of the STM&S papers WANT the dissemination to
> be as widespread and freely available as possible...

Hear, hear. We do need a referee system for quality control, which will have some overhead charge involved, but we do that ourselves anyway, at no charge to the publishers.

                                   BRB

Bert R. Boyce, Professor & Dean
School of Library & Information Science
Louisiana State University
267 Coates Hall
Baton Rouge, LA 70803

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LSBOYC[_at_]LSUVM.sncc.lsu.edu Received on Tue Sep 29 1998 - 14:01:40 GMT