List-Post: goal@eprints.org List-Post: goal@eprints.org Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 15:41:29 +0100 From: Fytton Rowland <j.f.rowl...@lboro.ac.uk> To: lis-e...@mailbase.ac.uk
As a member of the advisory committee on the ALPSP project, but nevertheless having my own opinions about scholarly publishing matters, I have some sympathy with the views Professor Harnad puts forward. The ALPSP survey contains a lot of very useful data on the reactions of a large sample of authors (over 3000 responses were obtained) to a number of electronic-publishing questions. But it was, when all is said and done, carried out by a group of publishers, albeit not-for-profit ones, and was funded by them for their own benefit. So it was to be expected that it would look primarily at a model of scholarly publishing that is a modification of, not a revolutionary change from, the conventional model from the past. In fairness, though, it must be said that the ALPSP meeting that launched their report, held in London on 9 April, did also present papers on other models. I was specifically asked by ALPSP to address the topic of "Non-Commercial Alternatives", and in my paper I reviewed a number of these, including, needless to say, Professor Harnad's ideas. The papers from that meeting will appear in the July 1999 issue of ALPSP's own journal, Learned Publishing. ********************************************************** Fytton Rowland, Director of Undergraduate Programmes, Department of Information Science, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leics LE11 3TU, UK. Phone +44 (0) 1509 223039 Fax +44 (0) 1509 223053 E-mail: j.f.rowl...@lboro.ac.uk http://info.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/staff/frowland.html **********************************************************