Joe,
I have to admit that I don't know what the precise
definition is
of 'a lot' (neither do I know what Scrubs is or how you can
turn
it off -- and perhaps we should keep it that way), but I
think we
can safely state that for most articles there are more
readers
than authors (some of the articles in Arxiv, with hundreds
of
authors, may well be exceptions to this). The issue is not
so
much that there are many readers 'out there' for most
articles,
because there are most probably not, but the issue is the
assumption that all potential 'real' readers are at
institutions
that have a subscription to the articles in question and not
'out
there' without access.
The Shakespeare quote is very amusing, but isn't the
question
more something like this: "If I pay for an insurance
policy, will
I get an accident?" Precisely because you don't know
you take out
insurance. Precisely because we don't know who can or will
read
specific scientific research articles we ought to have open
access.
We need to find a way for journals to provide economically
sustainable open access. The fact that we don't have open
access
is a kind of 'collateral damage' of the traditional
subscription
system. With the internet and its functionalities we can
have
structural and economically feasible open access as soon as
we
have enough political will to redirect the existing money
streams
for scientific literature. Maybe political will is one of
those
spirits that won't come when you call them. You may have a
point
there.
Jan Velterop
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