Jeffrey Tucker, Books, Online and Off, Ludwig von Mises Institute, March 22, 2004. An update to Tucker's earlier blog piece. (See Peter Suber's posting from 3/15/04) Tucker points out that online books and their print counterparts are seen as complementary, fulfilling similar and disparate functions for the reader. One example discussed is Mises' Omnipotent Government, which the "current publisher" declined the Institute the rights to publish freely online. So the Institute negotiated to lease the book and pay the publisher for expected lost revenues.
What happened was precisely the reverse of what the publisher expected. Instead of lost sales, the sales of the book shot up. In the few weeks since the text went online, more copies of this book left our warehouse than during the whole of the last decade. Omnipotent Government is now a top seller in the Mises.org catalog. The publisher obtained not only the leasing fee from our offices but suddenly enjoyed a flood of new orders for the book from us.
The article goes on to acknowledge the costs of publishing these texts and encourage those who benefit from their dissemination to support the Institute through membership and other contributions. (Source: The Virtual Chase)
Posted by
Garrett at 3/23/2004 11:22:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
