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

[Sarah]

On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 06:40, Andrew Gray <andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk> wrote:
> Discounting these users, Sarah's suggestion that it's never likely to
> get used is pretty likely. JSTOR don't make very clear numbers on
> "pay-per-view" articles available, but their published accounts do
> confirm that they don't make very much money from it. We have specific
> usage figures for one year only, which suggest that less than *0.005%*
> of available articles got purchased in that period - and that those
> were mostly at the cheapest end of the spectrum (averaging ~$6).
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
>
I've never understood how academic publishers view these issues. I
have friends who had their PhDs published by their university presses
-- at universities financed by taxpayers -- and the prices seemed
self-defeating -- £70 sterling for a relatively short book on a
minority issue. The publishers' argument is that it's a short print
run, so the price per unit has to be high, but the reason they can
only print a small number is they've determined in advance that no one
can afford to buy it.

So it turns into almost vanity publishing, where the only people who
buy the books are extended family and friends, and the occasional
library if you're lucky. In the meantime, the rest of the world is
effectively locked out of this knowledge. It's an odd mindset for
educators to have.

Sarah