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“Over the past two decades, increased concentration in the publishing industry has been accompanied by significant escalation in the price of serials publications, eroding libraries’ ability to provide users with the publications they need.” – Information Access Alliance, which consists of the ALA and other groups.

The TeleRead take: The alliance calls for a new federal standard for anti-trust enforcement. Check out its white paper, which, alas, is in PDF. Would you believe, the cost of medical journals has gone up 43 percent since 1998 and that math and science journals are 32 percent higher.

My fantasy is that the CEO of an information conglomerate is about to kick the bucket and will live only if the doctors can use a certain cure that actually doesn’t exist, because the researchers lacked affordable access to the necessary knowledge.

A voice from above whispers to the CEO. If he goes back in time and lowers the price of his medical journals–and prevails on fellow publishers to do the same–then the cure will materialize.

Needless to say, perhaps the same concept might apply in the future to electronic versions of medical textbooks.

(Found via Library Stuff.)

 
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