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
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