Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 12:29:24 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam Friends: All economists and other social scientists might find http://www.elsss.org very useful. Please alert your friends as well as librarians in economics and sociology. thanks. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ELSSS, the ELectronic Society for Social Scientists is a not-for-profit organisation aimed at solving the ever deepening crisis in scholarly and scientific communication created by the pricing policies of some commercial publishers that have forced libraries in the developed world to cut their journal portfolios and to slash their book collection and that have priced developing and transition economies out of the knowledge loop altogether. With institutional support from the Royal Economic Society http://www.res.org.uk, the University of St Andrews http://www.st-and.ac.uk, the Consortium of University and Research Libraries http://www.curl.ac.uk, and Scottish Enterprise Fife, ELSSS is committed to: Increase competition in the academic journal publishing marketplace by providing direct and credible alternatives to specific high-priced journals; Introduce a fairer and more efficient way of producing, distributing, and using academic journals whereby the system that currently produces large rents being earned by some commercial publishers is replaced by a mechanism that yields lowest-cost access and widest dissemination by rewarding only those individuals who contribute to making high-quality journals, namely, authors, referees, and editors - with substantial savings for libraries and the academic and student community.