This sounds excellent, as far as it goes, of course; the problem arises if one tries to get the entire book. There are a lot of open source academic publications online; I'm surprised that Wiley et. al. charges so much, given this. POD is not all that expensive, by the way, as Lulu and other venues show. Thanks, Alan On Wed, 9 Mar 2011, Charles Ess wrote:
well said and to the point - exactly. That said: what is to prevent anyone from contacting an author whose name s/he notices in a table of contents and asking for a copy of a given chapter or article? Without speaking for anyone else - this is a practice I engage in, as both requester and sender. It is also true in my experience that most authors are (generally) happy to respond positively to such requests, most especially under the sorts of circumstances you describe. Obviously, we want our work to be read and critically evaluated - not sequestered. An advantage of this practice, in my experience, is that it sometimes fosters helpful dialogue and creative collaboration between scholars who otherwise will not likely meet. Not an ideal solution, perhaps, but perhaps not also such a bad one?
My two bits - and please keep throwing in yours! - charles
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