The access privilege of the academic class
From our special correspondent …
(In the Dutch language part of the post, TvT asserts that commercial scientific publishers have pressured university libraries to limit access to journals etc (now all digitalised) to certified, registered users only – and bill for that use.)
Academic resources, especially periodicals, are more and more published and subscribed to in digital format. This diminishes non-academic public access to these resources as such data sources tend to be closed to non-members of universities and the like. Freedom of information is thus declining in our area of ubiquitous electronic communication. One needs to be a privileged member of the academic class to have access. This situation demands a reestablishment of the right to information for all citizens. Now commercial interests ban many people from scientific information sources. Some Dutch University Libraries have left open a backdoor for the knowledgeable general public, who can put their USB stick in some computers within the university to thus realize the traditional notion of freedom of access to the sciences for all.
from: http://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com (Tjebbe van Tijen’s blog. ) Read the full post in Dutch here.
[...] university computers… This post has been noted also by a blog specialized in this subject: Free Our Books, which is highly recommended. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Bargaining and [...]
SCRIBD.ORG my own & others libraries of texts/studies in ePublication format tested « the limping messenger
6 October 2009 at 17:11
I just wrote a review on two ePublications, iBooks whatever the non established name for on-line reading interface may become, with some remarks about the same subject: privileged academics versus ‘free leaners’ that need to fulfill their wishes in the grey zones of the internet, with just one nice practical example…
http://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/scribd-org-my-own-others-libraries-of-textsstudies-in-epublication-format-tested/
Tjebbe van Tijen
6 October 2009 at 17:16