I’ve been digesting Rick Anderson’s “modest proposal” for libraries to spend more resources on its special collections than on the “commodity” collections, which we all know are easily and cheaply available on the Web (isn’t everything?).
Steven Harris, in his post on the ALCTS blog – » Market Efficiency, or, Arguing with Rick, provides a good response: “BONK!” – or I would “Bunk”.
Harris rightly points out the obvious violations of copyright of the initial downloading of articles without payment that could be shared with others (except for your own pre-prints). In addition, while it may be possible to gather collections of books and articles at lower-than-before costs, it is certainly not easy. Shopping takes time, and that is one thing faculty and students do not have – at least for finding literature.
What do you think?
Libraries are For Use 
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