Lessig Wiki talk:Community Portal

Introducing BalTHOMore
Greetings from Baltimore City. Forgive me if I am violating Wiki-etiquette by posting this here, but I do not see where else this will fit. Feel free to "school me" if there is a better way to do this. For the record, I am not a fan of traditional forums so I hope to avoid the need to "go there."

With that said, I would like to introduce a new topic for discussion related to academic information production and public access to its products.

Long story, short: In my ongoing self-directed study of urban ecology, I too often encounter prohibitive fees imposed on many of the reprints of papers, articles, and studies that are of interest to me and my work. The small cabal of publishers are likely well known to most of you and include IngentaConnect, SpringerLink, J-stor, & Blackwell-Synergy among others.

It's not simply the matter of cost that has roused my ire -- although charging $29 for a single .pdf document is nothing less than preposterous if you ask me. Rather I am curious to hear what Larry and others have to say about this while taking into account that the research contained in these reports was often produced by people employed at state-funded colleges and universities, and paid for with publicly-funded government research grants.

I look forward to hearing what you all have to say about this! Thanks in advance. -BalTHOMore

P.S. I found my way to this wiki via Larry's incredibly provocative presentation to TED.