>The real question is: what are those "other activities"? My guess (from
>prior data and what you write below) is that the "other activities" of a
>journal turn out to be those of sustaining a paper-journal-publishing
>business!
In the case of Florida Ent Soc, other major activities include scholarships
to entomology or other insect-studying students; substantial prizes to
students for papers and posters at our annual meeting; honoraria and travel
expenses for speakers invited to participate in symposia at our annual
meeting; and meeting expenses when we meet in a Caribbean country every few
years. [FES has no building near Washington and no large staff in that
building, as does Ent Soc Amer.]
>> I read (in a book about scientific publishing that I could probably
>> locate it it were important) that in 1965 the U.S. Congress passed
>> legislation allowing government agencies and grants from government
>> agencies to pay page charges to non-for-profit publishers.
>
>If there was such congressional legislation in the US, then it would not
>have had much impact -- if page charges for research publication had
>been a big factor in the first place (which they are NOT, in paper
>publication today; they WILL be in tomorrow's electronic publication).
Ann Okerson informs me that in 1994 NSF started authorizing paying page
charges to for-profit publishers. That seems the best way to maintain the
many high-quality for-profit journals that have been started in the past
several decades.
Page charges ARE a big factor in the journals of biological societies. (As
institutional subscriptions are to journals of for-profit publishers.)
>It is well to remind learned societies why they have
>"nonprofit" and "learned" status in the first place...
Agreed!
Thomas J. Walker
Department of Entomology & Nematology
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-0620 FAX: (904)392-0190
Internet: TJW@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu
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