Friday, August 05, 2005

Is poetic economics catching on?

Charles Bailey's The Economics of Free, Scholar-Produced E-Journals
http://www.escholarlypub.com/digitalkoans/2005/08/04/the-economics-of-free-scholar-produced-e-journals/
presents some very interesting history of open access, which I hadn't heard before but would love to hear more of, as well as a vision of the economics of e-journals that suggests I may not be the only poetic economist around! Here is an excerpt on the estimate of the costs of such journals:

"the costs are so low and the functions so integral to scholarship that they are easily absorbed into ongoing operational costs of universities. Even if they weren’t and scholars had to do it all on their own, server hosting solutions are so ubiquitous and cheap, free open source software is so functional and pervasive, and commercial PC software is so powerful and cheap (especially at academic discounts) that these minor costs would act as no real barrier to the production of scholar-produced e-journals."

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

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