Re: In the news (Georgia State)

[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