[WikiEN-l] JSTOR "Early Journal Content" access

[Carcharoth]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 1:56 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist

That's an interesting article (not read the other ones yet). I
actually got a job offer from an academic publisher around 11 years
ago (just before Wikipedia started). I sometimes wonder what might
have happened if I'd taken that job instead of the one I took instead.
I'd probably have a different outlook on this whole debate. Though
having done some editing I am sympathetic to the fact that publishing
companies need to make some money to pay those that work for them
(probably through a delayed release after a few years), but clearly
not that much. Having said that, I'm sure I read that a few years ago
there was a big contraction in the journals publishing industry, or am
I imagining that? The whole "digitise a back-catalogue or archive and
make money out of it" thing is not that uncommon, actually. Museums
and libraries and archives sometimes try and do that as well (with
varying degrees of success). Libraries are another matter again. It
depends whether you are after current issues or older issues. The
former is harder with budget cuts, but the latter (older issues) can
usually be ordered up from somewhere. Online access is more
convenient, but not always necessary. Maybe one day people will be
surprised that books were ever offline and not availble online 24/7
from the moment of publication.

Carcharoth