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

[Carcharoth]

On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 2:18 PM, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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).
>>
> 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.

I have bought expensive academic books in the past, but never actual
published PhD theses. I would expect someone to rewrite, extend and
expand on their PhD thesis to make it suitable for a wider readership
before publishing it and expecting people to buy it. Many of the books
I've bought that have been expensive academic ones state that they are
based on, or are an extension of the author(s) PhD work or other
thesis work. I was also under the impression that PhD theses are
printed and bound to go into a library, not really for sale, so I'm
not sure what point is being made here. A PhD thesis and a book are
different things.

Carcharoth