RE: I was wrong about electronic price

From: David Preiss (davidpreiss@puc.cl)
Date: Fri Jan 28 2005 - 08:23:40 PST


Could you elaborate on this idea, Mike? I did not get the idea of what
you are suggesting.
David

So, at the same time that I lobby to get the electronic version down to
a reasonble price might members of XMCA come up with a better way to
deal with the issue of institutionalized publication of a non-mainstream
journal?

For example, perhaps one of your universities would provide a nice
subsidy if you took on the role of editor, or of organizing the editoral
process. Or perhaps a non-American publisher in a country where prices
are less expensive would like to offer the journal and support
publication in a way that maintains its exchange value for young
scholars who do not want to publish in Educational Psychologist or
American Ethnologists, and who cannot affor the 125+ dollar subscription
price for Human Development.

David Preiss
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile: www.puc.cl
PACE Center at Yale University: www.yale.edu/pace
Homepage: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~ddp6/
Phone: 56-2-3547174
Fax: 56-2-354-4844
E-mail: david.preiss@yale.edu, davidpreiss@puc.cl

-----Mensaje original-----
De: Mike Cole [mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com]
Enviado el: Friday, January 28, 2005 1:10 PM
Para: Xmca
Asunto: I was wrong about electronic price

Thanks for raising the issue of cost of MCA, David. Checking, it turns
out that the electronic price was raised when we were not looking. I
will contact the publisher about it today.

Tony's point is also well taken, but the analysis incomplete. Yep, we do
the labor of producing it. So why isn't it a public good?

We can easily make it one. We can self-publish electronically and give
it out free. That is what we used to do with the Newsletter that
preceeded the Journal. What will be some of the consequences?

 Scholars will no longer be able to provide evidence of publishing in a
carefully
     reviewed journal that appears in lots of citation abstracting
services.

I was not happy about converting from the Newletter to a formal journal.
I am not happy about the large amount of labor Peggy, a graduate
strudent, and I put into helping Harry, Anne, and his one staff person
to coordinate all the work of getting reviews, figuring out page counts,
badgering authors and reviewers who are late, threatening our citation
legitimacy, etc. It was FAR easier before.

I like the fact that Erlbaum makes one article a month free and that
XMCA readers get to choose what they want to talk about. But personally
speaking, I do not need MCA to have great discussions with the members
of this group

So, at the same time that I lobby to get the electronic version down to
a reasonble price might members of XMCA come up with a better way to
deal with the issue of institutionalized publication of a non-mainstream
journal?

For example, perhaps one of your universities would provide a nice
subsidy if you took on the role of editor, or of organizing the editoral
process. Or perhaps a non-American publisher in a country where prices
are less expensive would like to offer the journal and support
publication in a way that maintains its exchange value for young
scholars who do not want to publish in Educational Psychologist or
American Ethnologists, and who cannot affor the 125+ dollar subscription
price for Human Development.

Its a really important set of problems. All we need is the proper
solution. Perhaps I can get the cost of the electronic version of the
journal eliminated, B ut I see no way to make it free.

Suggestions?
mike



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