> andrel wrote:
> Wow, that sucks. I can't imagine paying for myself subscriptions to
> every lame-ass journal I ever had to look something up in.  It's almost
> criminal how places like IEEE and ACM will take your work, publish it,
> then charge you to have a copy of it.

	Actually, among the abusers, professional societies like IEEE and APS
are quite mild.

	The guys who really charge an arm and a leg are the private for-profit
publishers like Elsevier and Springer.

	Not an ACM member, but someone told me that every member gets access to
all their journals. With IEEE, you have to become a member, and then pay
for each journal you want to access. For individuals, it's very unlikely
to be worth it.

	And yes, I agree the amount they charge for a given article (if you
just want that one) is also ridiculous. It may be OK if you _really_
know that's the article you want, but if you're just doing ordinary
research, you'll have to go through dozens of papers.

	In any case, I've often heard that if you really want a paper, just
email the author and they'll send it to you. Haven't put it to the test.
I've also heard that over the last few years, a number of professional
societies (one or both of the US physics ones, and perhaps IEEE as well)
actually do allow you to put preprints online or on places like arxiv.
Preprints here meaning the version of the paper that has finally been
approved for publication (so pretty much the same paper). The condition
is simply that wherever you post it, you cite the actual IEEE paper.

	So those guys really aren't all that bad. I know Applied Physics
Letters allows you to make your paper open access if you (the author)
pay a fee - close to $1000 (usually comes from the grant that paid for
the research). That may sound like a disincentive, but do realize that
many of the prominent open access journals actually charge similar
rates. I hear IEEE also has a similar fee if you want your paper to be
open access.

-- 
Engineers: often wrong, seldom in doubt.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

Post a reply to this message