[BOAI] http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/sep/05/university-london-shakespeare-folio-sale

[Julia Bolton Holloway]

Excerpted from the above by Martin Paul Eve:

More interesting, I think, is the fact that this sale exposes the larger 
and ongoing economic problem faced by research libraries. In tandem with 
lagging library budgets 
<http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i46/Easy-Answer-Library-Budgets.html>, 
the cost of providing access to all the journal articles (not including 
books and historical research materials) needed by a researcher has 
risen by 300% above inflation 
<http://uksg.metapress.com/content/9tvk4t7324388071/?genre=article&id=doi%3a10.1629%2f2048-7754.25.2.158> 
since 1986.

While the humanities contribute in lower absolute terms to this figure 
than scientists, we, as academics, are the primary cause of this as we 
continue to publish in commercial venues (in order to satisfy conditions 
of hiring, firing and assessment). This, in turn, legitimises the 
extortion of our libraries who must hold a prestigious collection to 
"compete". Were we to work to lower the billions of pounds of 
shareholder profits 
<http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/elsevier-2009-2-billion-profits-could.html> 
built-in to serials subscriptions, perhaps through open access, research 
libraries would have fewer justifications for selling our national 
treasures.


-- 
Julia Bolton Holloway Mediatheca 'Fioretta Mazzei' 'English' Cemetery 
P.le Donatello, 38 50132 FIRENZE ITALY