Comments on: Scholarly journals resist offering online versions

Some publishers of scholarly journals dislike bill to require online access to articles.
The New York Times

[freemarket--2008]

Goverment Funding

Personally, I don't think the government should be funding most of this research in the first place. But since they are, the information should be available to those who paid for it...the public.

Online distribution is more efficient and easier to search and catalog. It should have been done long ago. If some prefer a hard copy, sure they can pay a fee to have it done. There is no justification here to subsidize yet another industry.

[Razzl]

Public property

I disagree with the idea that government shouldn't be funding research--"free market" ideologues routinely dismiss the concept of collective responsibility and benefit which governments carry out--but I agree that the government is perfectly within its rights to dictate how publicly funded research will be distributed. Even the professional users have difficulty accessing printed journals in timely fashion. Web access is a reasonable method of distribution that all peer-reviewed journals should be offering, even without government ties.

[freemarket--2008]

Goverment Funding

Personally, I don't think the government should be funding most of this research in the first place. But since they are, the information should be available to those who paid for it...the public.

Online distribution is more efficient and easier to search and catalog. It should have been done long ago. If some prefer a hard copy, sure they can pay a fee to have it done. There is no justification here to subsidize yet another industry.

[Razzl]

Public property

I disagree with the idea that government shouldn't be funding research--"free market" ideologues routinely dismiss the concept of collective responsibility and benefit which governments carry out--but I agree that the government is perfectly within its rights to dictate how publicly funded research will be distributed. Even the professional users have difficulty accessing printed journals in timely fashion. Web access is a reasonable method of distribution that all peer-reviewed journals should be offering, even without government ties.