COLLOQUY

THE QUESTION

RESPONSES

BACKGROUND

To cut publishers out of the grand "academic jousting/library funding/publisher's profiting" tail-chase by retaining copyrights, academia will have to give up or replace the value of publisher's brands. This is much harder to do than building a Web site and organizing vets. How many serious academics would want to give up the status of being published in the best journal in their field?

With the Web as a robust means of distributing research, the value of publisher's brands can be distilled as an academic perk being funded through libraries. The option to self publish gives academia the power to demand that their libraries get better value for their money. The best that can come of this showdown is that the top publishers be forced to dramatically alter their cost structures and distribution methods to reflect the realities of the Web. They should be forced to sell by the article at a reasonable price, not just by subscription, as a condition of the copyright. As for the second-tier publishers, they should be looking for new jobs.

-- John Cady, Student - Long Island University - Palmer School of Library & Information Science (posted 9/25, 10:30 a.m., E.D.T.)

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