i did not appreciate the forum was only for the research community ;i am an implementer of research findings eg www.nelh.nhs.uk and benefit from the detail of scientific monographs. also many people like me who live on the road and not on a university network need paper copies of books and publishers are reluctant to publish the specialist texts on paper.
apologies for intrusion muir gray ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stevan Harnad" <har...@ecs.soton.ac.uk> To: <american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org> Sent: Sunday, July 21, 2002 4:39 PM Subject: Re: Book on future of STM publishers > On Sat, 20 Jul 2002, muir gray wrote: > > > I think the debate is too focussed on the future of the journal and am > > pleased to see that it now addresses the monograph. a colleague and I have > > just made a monograph by working directly with a printer and making > > simulataneous paper and electronic form of the book with no need for > > bookshops or warehouses. the printing revolution is as important as the > > pagemaking revolution > > This Forum is focused mainly on the contents of peer-reviewed journals > for the following reasons: > > (1) It is free online access to the peer-reviewed research literature that > is the research community's principal concern. > > (2) Non-free online versions of books that are produced to be sold are > not the concern of this Forum. This is not a Forum about new ways to > produce or market "eBooks." > > (3) Free online books are not a problem. They are by definition > open-access already. > > Stevan Harnad
