The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0004 Wednesday, 3 January 2007
[1] From: Norman D. Hinton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 30 Dec 2006 13:47:24 -0600
Subj: Re: SHK 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
[2] From: Norman D. Hinton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 30 Dec 2006 13:48:25 -0600
Subj: Re: SHK 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
[3] From: Shannon Miller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 30 Dec 2006 15:46:15 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
[4] From: Donald Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 2 Jan 2007 10:25:54 -0600
Subj: RE: SHK 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
[5] From: Julia Griffin <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 02 Jan 2007 16:57:09 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Norman D. Hinton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 30 Dec 2006 13:47:24 -0600
Subject: 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
Comment: Re: SHK 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
On this topic, one ought to note the disgusting practice of charging
academic libraries more (often much more) for the journals than members
of the associations or individual subscribers are charged. This does
not encourage making the journals available to people who cannot afford
the membership or subscription fees.
I strongly advocate getting scholarly journals printed at the lowest
possible cost.
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Norman D. Hinton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 30 Dec 2006 13:48:25 -0600
Subject: 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
Comment: Re: SHK 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
>Tell the textbook publishers "No!" They're the same ones
>who publish the journals you complain of.
Rarely the case.
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Shannon Miller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 30 Dec 2006 15:46:15 -0500
Subject: 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
Comment: Re: SHK 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
There will undoubtedly be many responses to Mr. Connors' comment on
faculty as creating the problem of rising journal costs: I will focus on
two points here. First, let me respond to the remark about textbooks.
Most, in fact almost all, of the faculty that I know are incredibly
conscientious about the cost of books for their courses: I try to keep
the costs to my students comfortably below $100 for any course. Since
as an undergrad between 1981 to 1985 I budgeted $75-$100 per class, this
seems a very reasonable amount. And since tuition rates can make an
individual course "cost" anywhere from $1,500 per class to almost 4K,
$100 (and even a substantially larger amount paid for books) is a tiny
fraction of the cost. As to new editions of textbooks, there is reason
we don't want to be using the same text of, say, the Norton Anthology
from 1985: the canon and access to that canon has been fundamentally
changed, and we need to recognize this in our classes. And personally,
I think students should keep their books as a marker of what they have
learned. Worrying about the resale value of the very material that
makes the course worth anything is truly letting the tail wag the dog:
my students will refuse to write in the book so they get back more
money, with the result that they know the material less well and do
badly in the course.
Further, there seems to be no recognition in Mr. Connors' statement that
faculty, who may spend many months on producing articles to expand the
field and introduce new ideas, get no financial recompense for producing
articles in scholarly journals. Our labor is free in this equation
because we care more about the circulation of ideas than we do about
personal profit. Are there other, more indirect, rewards? Depends on
the scholar and that scholar's institution. But if there is a problem
with the "cost" of journals, it is not because faculty are profiting
directly from this transaction.
Shannon Miller
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Donald Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 2 Jan 2007 10:25:54 -0600
Subject: 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
Comment: RE: SHK 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
Aspects of this issue puzzle me, so I am wondering if I could get some
answers.
What are the names of the for-profit journals published by commercial
publishing houses?
Do they have any relevance to English literary studies or the humanities
generally? (Are any of our journals "profitable"?)
What kind of expenses do any scholarly journals have beyond those
necessary for printed publication -- that is, beyond type-setting and
layout, paper, ink and press time, and distribution costs?
Presumably you have to pay an editor and his or her secretary. For a
peer-reviewed journal (the only ones worth discussing), do the members
of the editorial board and the article reviewers get some kind of
stipend? If so, how much? What is the bottom-line on costs for a
first-rate journal?
We then can ask how these expenses are to be covered. I know that many
journals are subsidized by universities, and I also know that there is
constant pressure to save money by dropping these subsidies. If the
costs could be reduced significantly so would the pressure- presumably.
It might also be possible to get foundation grants-perhaps ones so
sizable that they could permanently fund the journal-especially if the
costs did not include all those printing expenses.
Does anybody know what the figures are? Such knowledge might
significantly speed the grass-roots movement that Gabriel speaks of.
Cheers,
don
[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Julia Griffin <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 02 Jan 2007 16:57:09 -0500
Subject: 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
Comment: Re: SHK 17.1109 Price of Academic Journals
In reply to Mr. Connors: the reason why university professors "insist on
the latest editions" is that they are, within about a year, the only
ones readily available for mass purchase. I would love to use the same
edition of (say) the Norton Anthology of English Literature that I used
four years ago; it is no longer in print. I am therefore using the
latest edition - not, as Mr. Connors implies, out of some imperious and
irresponsible caprice, but because that is now all there is. If he has
a solution to the problem, other than giving up on anthologies
altogether, I would be delighted to hear it.
Julia Griffin
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