Docster & Scholarly Publishing

[Eric Schnell <schnell.9@osu.edu>]

         A major problem I see is that the copyrights to most scholarly 
publications are transferred by authors to the publishers.  Publishers then 
recoup their publishing costs (making a tidy profit) by charging copyright 
fees (and by selling advertising).  Now, many scholarly publishers exist 
simply because Universities have tenure systems that emphasize publication 
in peer-reviewed journals.  Publishers feed off authors who voluntarily 
give up the right to store and distribute their own works in an effort to 
obtain tenure (or a promotion).

          Publishers play both ends.  After they have secured the rights, 
the sell the intellectual property produced by faculty back to the 
University.  Ohio State's Health Sciences Library's ILL department alone 
spends almost $9000 a year to buy back copyright of Ohio State 
authors.  Add on to this the cost of journal subscriptions that contain 
faculty publications.  As the cost of printing a journal goes up, they 
simply forward the additional costs back to the Universities since they 
know they will pay for it.

         Does anyone else find this troubling?

              Imagine if all Universities were able to retain the rights to 
all the journal publications of their faculty.  Docster could then be the 
tool to pull the content from these sites together.

         Thanks, Dan, for the spark. This makes for some interesting 
thought and discussion.

-Eric














Eric Schnell
Assistant Professor
Head, Information Technology Services
Prior Health Sciences Library
The Ohio State University
schnell.9@osu.edu / 614-292-4870
http://bones.med.ohio-state.edu/eric.html