From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:27:59 +0000

>To the extent that the general public cannot see the research that the
>elite institutions are doing, and to the extent other parts of society
>have difficulty in obtaining and using the research, the elite
>institutions  will lose their base of support. This is already
>happening in the US, and probably will soon be elsewhere.

David, are you intentionally contending that there's a direct correlation
between public access to research articles and public support for higher
education? (Whether intentional or not, a direct correlation is what's
clearly implied by the phrase "to the extent that.")

If that really is your contention, then how do you explain the fact that
public support for higher-education institutions was far stronger in the
decades prior to the emergence of Open Access? (Or do you disagree that
public support was stronger in, say, the 1960s and 1970s?)

--
Rick Anderson
Acting Dean, J. Willard Marriott Library
University of Utah
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