How about REAL freedom of information in this society?

[Jackpine Radical]

I do a fair amount of reading in order to keep up with my field--reading that requires access to professional journals. Unfortunately, it is difficult for me to get to the journals because I am a private practitioner with no academic affiliation. I do have access to some journals because of (expensive) memberships in professional societies, but there are many journals I cannot get to online. As a result, I end up having to submit individual article requests to libraries, write to authors for reprints, beg copies of articles off colleagues, etc. This pisses me off, especially when I consider that my tax dollars go to support much of the research to which I am being denied access. But beyond that, I think everyone should have access to this kind of public information. Why should a poor person be blocked from knowledge easily available to the oppressor class? There has to be a better way to finance the journals. For example, why not add a small amount onto each research grant to pay for the dissemination of the findings of the research? Any journal that publishes publicly financed research should be reimbursed from public funds for publishing the results of the research. Seems like a simple and nearly perfect solution to me.

[cali]

1. I really like your idea about adding a small amount to grants for dissemination purposes.

makes a ton of sense.