[Previous message][Next message][Previous in topic][Next in topic] [Previous by same author][Next by same author][Previous page (1999)] [Back to main SEPTEMBER98-FORUM page] [Join or leave SEPTEMBER98-FORUM (or change settings)][Reply] [Post a new message][Proportional font][Non-proportional font] Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 12:34:48 -0700 Reply-To: Hal Varian Sender: September American Scientist Forum From: Hal Varian Subject: Re: Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives '99 Comments: To: Stevan Harnad Comments: cc: mloeb@computer.org, Tim Ingoldsby , Lib Serials list , VPIEJ-L@LISTSERV.VT.EDU, Elib List EJ In-Reply-To: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 10 Jul 1999, Stevan Harnad wrote: > > No author *wants* to deter eyeballs, even trade authors. > > You might as well say no producer of any product wants to deter greater > consumption of their product (it's just that they would like to get > paid for it!). Indeed. You've now stated the correct principle: authors (academic and trade) are happy to be paid for their work. There is no difference in their motivation in this regard. The primary motivation for each group is visibility, but neither group disdains monetary compensation. > I'm afraid I have to disagree again: It would require a MONSTROUSLY > large amount of money to make a research author trade off his potential > impact on research for the impact on his pocketbook. (And many > scientists and scholars, still recalling why they chose the leaner path > of Learned Inquiry rather than heading straight for the junk bond market > in the first place, would decline even that!) The evidence contradicts you. Many academics choose to devote part of their time to writing textbooks, trade books, consulting and other such compensated pursuits. They could be spending this time doing academic research. It appears that they are choosing to trade off *some* research output and recognition for *some* financial gains. >Correct, but TOTALLY irrelevant! The author is not being paid out of the >access-blocking toll-gate receipts from the sale of his papers by S/L/P! That's true enough, but that wasn't your original assertion. Your original claim was "(2) Unlike all other literature, their authors write these papers to report their ideas and findings, not to make money on their texts. All they want is to reach the eyes and minds of a maximum of fellow researchers, present and future, once their findings have passed peer review." I asserted that is statment not entirely true: part of the motivation of academic authors is economic, due to the relationship between rank, publication, and salary. I agree that academics would prefer to make more money without reducing the number of readers, but this is trivial and obvious: the same is true of non-academic authors. > This is a completely spurious, noncausal correlation, and the simple > act of self-archiving shows it to be so. (Have the 100,000 authors who > have self-archived in Los Alamos reduced or inhanced their impacts and > incomes?) Increased them, I would claim, since by increasing their visibility they have, indirectly, enhanced their income. >I'm afraid I disagree, and I do think it makes a great difference. The >similarities between the two populations are partial, superficial and, >in the present context, misleading. The deep differences are in the >means/ends: For most trade authors, self-archiving their work free for >all is only a temporary means to an end (hopeful, eventual >compensation); for (most?) refereed journal authors it IS the end >(widest possible access to their findings for peer eyes/mind, present >and future). Suppose you cut all linkages between compensation and publication and had a rigid formula between years-on-the job and academic salary. Don't you think that academic publication rates would go down? (As they do in countries with such rigid academic compensation systems.) Suppose you offered publication to trade authors with minimal financial compensation. Don't you think a lot of people would take you up on this? I submit the answer is yes since very little trade publication is compensated to any great degree even now. In fact, it could easily be the case that the average academic author makes more from publishing a book (via the impact on promotion and salary) than the average trade author makes from publishing a book (via royalties). > The reason stressing the similarities between the trade and nontrade > literatures here is misleading is that the self-archiving model I have > been advocating for refereed journal papers is decidedly NOT the right > model for the rest of the literature, and conflating the two simply > blurs the critical insight at the core of all this. I guess I don't know what "right" means here. If you mean "economically sustainable" I would argue that self-archiving is sustainable in both environments, since the cost of self-archiving is so low. > But this can be settled empirically: Let a line be drawn in Cyberspace, > and let those who are interested in giving away their products > (whatever they are) as freebies in perpetuo step to the left of it > (say), and let those who are not step to the right. > > The entire refereed journal authorship will be on the left. Perhaps > some others will be too. Let's see wait and see who. I'm predicting > that most book and magazine authors will not (and note that I said "in > perpetuo," not in "pro-tem promo"!). Look at the the non-academic textual content on the WWW. The vast majority of it is available for free. Some of this free material involves compensation for the author, some doesn't. I would argue that fundamental economic forces will keep it that way. So the left side of your line will be heavily populated by both academic and non-academic authors. > In any case, that is the literature I am dedicated to freeing (from its > hostagehood to the trade model and S/L/P) -- not every product of the > human mind! I don't disagree with the rest of your argument. I just think that your story about why academic publishing differs from trade publishing is wrong. You argue that there is a fundamental difference in motivation between academic authors and trade authors: academic authors seek readers, and trade authors seek money. In reality, academic authors and trade authors both seek money and readership. And, in each case, readership is the primary driver. The real difference between the economics of academic and trade publishing is not due to having an entirely different set of motivations as you claim, but rather in the nature of the academic research process. Academic articles are both an input to research and an output of research, which is rather different from trade publications. (Compare citation patterns in the two literatures.) Because the literature is both an inputs and an output, up until the last decade or so, it made sense for researchers to pay an intermediary to organize the selection, beautification, production, and distribution of academic research. But now that the costs of beautification, production and distribution have declined so dramatically, the role of the intermediary has been dramatically changed, and it may make sense for authors to take on much more of the intermediary's role. But the primary reason for this is due to the change in technology and the associated change in costs---it isn't due primarily to the difference in motivations, as you assert. Hal Varian, Dean voice: 510-642-9980 SIMS, 102 South Hall fax: 510-642-5814 University of California hal@sims.berkeley.edu Berkeley, CA 94720-4600 http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Back to: Top of message | Previous page | Main SEPTEMBER98-FORUM page ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Back to the LISTSERV home page at LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG.