Print

Print


To Peter Kidd's and Simon Coles' thoughtful commentary I would add
this note, from my own observations:
Scientific or professional journals have a limited audience, are
costly to produce, and face a lot of competition. So subscription
prices, and I presume, advertising charges, are many times those of
general-audience periodicals. Not unusual for a sub to cost $10 or
$15 an issue, so they often offer deep discounts to starving students,
and steep surcharges to libraries. Their problem is not so much plain
piracy, but the trend for a single issue to be passed around or shared
by a hundred or more readers. Too much of that will put them out of
business. On the other hand, whatever encourages readership or more
libraries to subscribe is good for the publisher. I feel therefore
that my own posting of title citations and brief reviews, rather than
direct quotations, is beneficial, not harmful, to publishers and I
wouldn't expect any complaints about it. Cheers,
Joe
J. R. Bruman   (818) 789-3694
3527 Cody Road
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403-5013