[Oberon] [EXT] My "Building Your Own Tools" Papers

[Paul Reed]

Hi Robert,

Thank you for your interesting and helpful note about the Open Library. 
I was not aware of it and it's good to know about this kind of 
controlled digital lending, although they are quite confusing about it 
since they say their primary purpose is to build a database of book 
metadata:

https://openlibrary.org/help/faq/about#what

However, reading on it seems that with a login you can indeed borrow 
books.


> I've looked at the bound proceedings for 2000 and 2003 online and they
> are still rather pricey for used books (over $100 US).

Bizarre, when the new paper volumes are available from Springer for EUR 
74.89 inc VAT, and the ebook even cheaper. I have noticed before that 
the sprawling online used book market contains such traps for the 
unwary!


>> However, the articles are $30 each. I am sorry. It is not right, esp. 
>> given Paul's comment that this is cheap. No, it is not...
>> Wojtek

Wojtek, you deliberately misrepresent what I said: you know I was not 
referring to the per-paper price - the volume prices are immediately 
below on the website.

And by all means feel free to sound off about academic publishing models 
in some more appropriate forum.

Wait, unless you mean I should go back in time and renegotiate with 
those embattled folks at Springer, who were even then, probably, having 
to field frequent assertive demands that information (and by implication 
their hard work) should be free. Yawn.

Paul