Heather Morrison and Michael McIntosh wrote a review of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for the January issue of The Charleston Advisor (already blogged here). Yesterday the Advisor published their letter to the editor, updating their review. Excerpt: 'With respect to the lack of general articles, SEP editor Ed Zalta provided an interesting explanation. When SEP was first written, it was designed for professional scholars. it came as a surprise to find how many others were interested in using this open access tool - high school students, undergrads, and the general public. It is primarily this new, unintended audience which is most likely to want to read the general articles. There may be a lesson here for the open access movement as a whole. Perhaps the reasons many have not sought out this kind of resource in the past is not lack of interest, but rather lack of access. This underscores the authors' belief that this resource is useful for libraries of all types, and it would make sense for all to participate in the funding effort.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/25/2005 11:26:00 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.
