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James Mahaffy (mahaffy@dordt.edu) Phone: 712 722-6279 498 4th Ave NE Biology Department FAX : 712 722-6336 Dordt College, Sioux Center IA 51250-1697 >>> jlipps@berkeley.edu 04/11/05 8:49 PM >>> Paleonetters: Here's a problem for discussion on PaleoNet: The crises in academic publishing. It is a a very great threat to our profession of and interest in paleontology. [snip of most of the good message to save spce in my response] Jere Jere is right on and the problem is even greater for those who do not work at institutions with libraries that get many of the research journals [my PhD was at University of Illinois, which had one of the biggest collections of journals]. I teach at a smaller (1200+ students) liberal arts college in NW Iowa. We have a good library for a college of our size but it wold not be fair for the institution to cut journals students need to spend for several of the pricy journals (Review of Paleobotany, Paleontographica and a few other journals I should read). To read these I should and used to drive 5 hours to University of Minnesota or about the same distance to University of Iowa and Iowa State [some at each University]. SDS at Brookings is closer but they made a massive cut in journals maybe 15 years ago. The problem is really the clash between the philosphy of academics which is to make the information freely available and hence publish in lower cost [usually non profit]society journals and commercial publishers that market for profit to the large Univeristy libraries and make it much harder for the rest of us to get. When this came up on a parasitology list, I made the suggestion that we should try and support the society journals so the information can be more affordable for more of us. However, I did not realize that deans and evaluators of folks going for tenure use citation rankings for evaluation of publication and guess what - the commercial publishers have managed to often have better cited journals than the society journals so many of them didn't think they could afford to publish in a less cited society journal. I still think Jere is right. The journals need articles that are cited and if the paleo and other communities support lower cost electronic or society journals - we could have an impact. Oh yes I personally get Palios, Paleobiology and Palynology (ASSP journal) and a few others but can not afford to put the money into more journals. I guess I have to start driving again this summer.
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