[LIS-Forum] OA and print publishers

Subbiah Arunachalam arun at mssrf.res.in
Fri Dec 30 03:44:56 IST 2005


Friends:

With the advent of Internet and email, you thought that the post office
would have become less important. Please read the latest US Postal Service
Annual report (for the year 2005), which is just out.

United States Postal Service
Source: United States Postal Service (USPS)
USPS Annual Report 2005
>From press release: "The results are in - the U.S. Postal Service ended
2005 with a record sixth consecutive year of growth in productivity, wiped
out its debt and delivered fifty percent more mail to 32 million more
homes and businesses than it did 20 years ago while doing it at 1985
staffing levels. These results are highlighted in the just released 2005
Annual Report of the U.S. Postal Service."

With the advent of Open access journals [and open access archives], other
professional print journals wouldn't die, as feared by the writer(s) of
the recent report of the Royal Society! Physics journals and the central
archive (arXiv) coexist for the past 15 years. Free availability of
Internet downloaded music has not resulted in music recording companies
closing down.

Commonsense would make us believe that heavy objects cannot remain up in
the air for even a minute, and that thanks to gravity they will fall down.
Every day thousands of planes, weighing in tonnes, are crisscrossing the
skies at altitudes of 30,000 feet. The same way, contrary to the
'commonsense thinking' of many who believe that giving information free on
the Internet will destroy the publishing industry, it will continue to
thrive.

Arun
[Subbiah Arunachalam]



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