Interesting article
if you like that sort of thing :p
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist
I've had a quick look, but i think there are several flaws in this argument ( not that I have the same standing as him of course, so my view wouldn't count) not least of which is it would make it far more difficult to locate something if it were randomly in the public domain. for example if I wanted to look up something in my field I have a fair idea where it would be, when I have to look at government websites I can spend ages getting just the right phrase to get the article I need, and then it is often more because I know it is there somewhere rather than coming across something I didn't know existed. Also, let's face it, unless you are really interested in a particular subject are you likely to go looking through the mass of material to discover something anyway? In theory I suppose it should all be available for anyone, but in order to do this it would have to be catalogued, and arranged in say....a journal relating to that subject, which could be located in....a university library...people with the same interest would then submit articles to be included in that journal so anyone who had a particular interest could look up the material...of course this would mean people would have to be paid to vet the material , even if it is 'free' at the moment, it wouldn't be if it became a government run thing would it?... and printers would be needed etc ...so wouldn't we be back to square one? I love the way he distinguishes between 'academics' and the 'laity' - we can't just be one big group then. If articles were just published on the internet there would be the same problem, and what about the times when results are maybe not quite what they seem, so that someonne looking up 'the role of the carp in the satisfaction of an angling trip' (no, that isn't my subject!:$) might find a conclusion stating that size is everything, whereas in fact further research might conclude that it has more to do with the flavour of crisps the angler is eating, it might take another researcher in the same field to fish :$ that one out, and he would probably found the original article in the related journal 'fish for us' except of course that wouldn't exist. so some poor angler would go fishing with completly the wrong idea of what they needed.
