RE: universities experiment with paying OA fees

[Karl Bridges <kbridges@uvm.edu>]

I agree with Sandy. Vox populi Dei as it were.  In subsets of the 
market, of course, it is different. That's why I paid $2000 for 
my handmade Lobb shoes, another $500 for my handmade Briggs 
umbrella. Despite the forces of the marketplace -- which favor 
the mass marketer -- there is always room for quality products. 
The idea that more sophisticated is always better is the 
intellectual equivalent of crack.

Karl Bridges


> I grant David that universities can be the initial seedbed for 
> a lot of innovation. But it doesn't take long for the private 
> sector to pick up on these innovations and, with their immense 
> capital resources, develop them into far more sophisticated 
> systems. Cottage industries will never be able to hold their 
> own against the Wal-Marts of the world, I'm afraid. The 
> independent bookstore sector is testimony to that. Just ask my 
> two employees who used to be managers of local bookstores in 
> State College. The only general bookstores that now exist are 
> Barnes & Noble and the Penn State Bookstore (operated by B&N), 
> plus one small store that doubles as a coffeehouse and mainly 
> sells used, not new, books.
>
> Imaginative thinking has allowed independents to keep a toehold 
> in this business, but the best they can do is hang on. They'll 
> never again dominant the sector the way they once did, just as 
> you'll never see the general store regain the place now held by 
> the Wal-Marts of the world. The last local general store in 
> State College, Hout's, closed last year. Meanwhile, more big 
> chain stores are sprouting up all the time.
>
> David, look around you in Princeton: the same thing happened 
> there. What remains of the old Balt, the Annex, etc., among 
> locally owned restaurants, or the Micawber bookstore? All gone. 
> Now it is just Starbuck's, MacDonald's, etc., and Barnes & 
> Noble. Not much truly "local" small business left, is there?
>
> Sandy Thatcher
> Penn State University Press