The Reconstruction of the Political Economy of Scientific Publications

The weight of academic journals in the budgets of university libraries is here recalled, in particular for the disciplines of Applied Science and Medicine. The electronic and commercial versions of these journals, if they bring certain quantitative gains, do not resolve the problem of cost, in fact quite the contrary. The Internet today gives the opportunity to the scientific communication system to find a new balance and this article underlines a particular recent initiative by various American financial organizations, innovative in the logic of the "net economy". The political stakes for innovative systems and services, in the framework of a national and European dimension, is defended.
Read