2c127a8c   
   From: siegman@stanford.edu   
      
   > >> The current model for scholarly publishing assumes that all readers are   
   > >> affiliated with either a university or a large corporation.  Everyone   
   > >> else has to pay $30 to find out whether a given paper is any use.   
   > >>   
   > >> There's an excellent reason that Optics Express is the most cited optics   
   > >> journal: it's free to readers.   
   > >>   
   > >> Cheers   
   > >>   
   > >> Phil Hobbs   
      
   Even though I'm personally insulated from the above problem more or less   
   for life (because of the "emeritus" that's associated with my retirement   
   status), I'm very sympathetic to it.  I'd offer two comments:   
      
   a)  If you haven't tried Google Scholar, it seems to provide both search   
   capabilities and open access to a remarkably wide range of the   
   scientific literature these days; and   
      
   b)  I wonder if university alumni associations could be persuaded   
   somehow to provide broader or even unrestricted access to their   
   university-library-based journal and database subscriptions to alumni   
   who joined their associations at some higher level grade of membership.   
      
   Doing this kind of thing raises various problems, like possibly   
   generating "unrelated-income" tax problems for the universities, and   
   likely raising the prices universities would have to pay to publishers   
   and professional societies for those subscriptions.   
      
   But even so, seems like a scheme like this could be workable and   
   "administrate-able" in practice, and provide win-win benefits for all   
   concerned.   
      
   If anyone has knowledge of such arrangements, I'd be glad to hear about   
   them (preferably here on the newsgroup rather than offline . . . )   
      
      --AES   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)