From: Henrietta Thornton <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:58:33 -0500
Complaints about Amazon are ALL I hear lately. First the sales tax
debate, now their app that allows you to check a price in another
store, buy on Amazon, and get $5. Store owners are furious.
Etta.
Etta Thornton-Verma
Associate Editor, Reference at Library Journal and School Library Journal
New York, NY 10013
Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: (646) 380-0748
-----Original Message-----
From: LibLicense-L Discussion Forum
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 8:49 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Future of the subscription model
From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:33:18 -0600
Well, Chuck, if these NDAs are so outrageous, the Big Deals so
one-sided, why do libraries keep giving in, after making loud
protests? It's one thing to complain, but if those who complain then
don't act, the greedy capitalists keep winning, right?
By the way, I think you mean "oligopoly," not "oligarchy." But I'm not
sure, with the multiplicity of players involved in scholarly journal
publishing, the market control of the largest publishers technically
even constitutes an oligopoly. There is even more market
concentration in textbook publishing.
As I've said before, universities have no one but themselves to blame
for letting STM journal publishing be captured by commercial
publishers. Universities had their own healthy and well-functioning
publishing infrastructure to use if they had so chosen, but for
whatever reason allowed STM publishing to migrate outside to the
commercial sector.
If you think the domination of this sector is harmful, how come we
don't hear complaints about Amazon, which is as predatory a commercial
actor as there is anywhere, playing dirty time and again to increase
its market share and profits? And how come libraries have facilitated
the dominance of Google in mass digitization, which redounds to
Google's benefit and its shareholders as much as anyone else's? What's
that about casting stones if you live in glass houses?
Sandy Thatcher
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