Upcoming
Tuesday, April 6, 2004Electronic Site Licenses to Academic Journals: A Boon for Whom?
Presenters:
Carl Bergstrom, University of Washington Department of Biology
Ted Bergstrom, University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Economics
Minot Room
Countway Library
Harvard Medical School
3:00-4:00 p.m.
Using basic economic theory to explore the consequences of electronic journal distribution, Carl and Ted Bergstrom find that if a journal is priced to maximize the publisher's profits, scholars are likely to be worse off on average if universities purchase site licenses than if access were by individual subscriptions only. However, they believe that site licenses are not always disadvantageous. The Bergstroms will discuss their position that when journals issued by professional societies and university presses are maintained by institutional site licenses, the net benefit to the scientific community is larger than if these journals were sold only by individual subscriptions.