A colleague just forwarded to me a note from the people who run SSRN. Apparently SSRN will soon make available to those who visit the site an option to "purchase a bound hard copy" of anything that's posted there that's between 19 and 240 pages, for a marginal fee.
There's a way for authors who post on SSRN to opt out of this service. At first blush, opting out seems like a good thing to do. I thought that SSRN was a place to post work in progress, or drafts, conference-length versions of papers which will eventually be expanded to article-length. Placing a draft between two covers and selling the result somehow seems to me rather like publishing the piece.
Any views?
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8 comments:
Perhaps 'publishing' should be reserved for processes in which peer review precedes the creation of a hard copy -- otherwise one might accidentally 'publish' by printing out and stapling a draft to pencil in some revisions.
Or perhaps it doesn't have anything to do with hard copies at all; would PLoS ONE count as 'publishing' in your definition?
Funny that you ask about my "definition" of publishing, since I didn't propose one or say anything to indicate that I have any particular view about how "publication" should be defined. Good reading skills.
And, moreover, your suggestion is pretty obviously silly. If prior peer review is a necessary condition for something's being properly described as published, then there's a lot less published material in the world than one would think. Whole volumes of journals contain no publications; many series of visible Presses do not "publish" the books they produce. I know of very long CVs that (presupposing your suggestion) have almost no publications on them, even though they have long lists of things written, printed, and distributed. And so on.
I think the sense that putting the draft essay between two covers constitutes something like "publishing" has to do with the fact that someone must *buy* the resulting object. SSRN is *selling* an object which consists in pages of writing between two covers.
I think the sense that putting the draft essay between two covers constitutes something like "publishing" has to do with the fact that someone must *buy* the resulting object. SSRN is *selling* an object which consists in pages of writing between two covers.
I'm wondering about this. Suppose I put draft materials on my website; McX wants to use one of my papers (in draft) for a course on Y (for which he gets my permission). McX's university bookstore downloads my paper from my website, and then charges students for the course packet, which includes (inter alia) a print of my paper.
Is it now published? Not clear to me. At a minimum, I still seem to have certain privileges over the work that, generally, I wouldn't in typical cases of publication. For one thing, I still retain all of my copyright privileges. And if I have a big, bold "DRAFT: DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION" on the top, that still seems binding on readers ((at least ethically -- don't ask me about the law), even if someone is charging them money for downloading it from my site, printing it, and slapping some cardboard on either side.
One thing you might be picking up on is that (as the holder of all your copyrights) it's not clear that SSRN can legally profit from selling your work. Of course, they might insist they're not -- they're charging a service fee, not making a profit, etc. Fine lines, and all of that. But their treading of this fine line might contribute to the feeling that there's something publishing-like going on: they seem to be doing something that at least smells like it should have been preceded by copyright transfer.
If it's cheaper than books printed by publishers, then why not. I see it as nothing more than a convenient option. SSRN might have gotten this idea from the self-publishing industry (e.g., lulu.com).
What's so inconvenient about downloading a pdf?
Anyway, according to ssrn:
"The price for one or more bound hard copies will be $9.99 per copy plus shipping."
$10??? They aren't exactly giving this stuff away.
Does this seem a little like those "Who's Who" volumes? We'll put your name in this book if you and your family will buy a few copies?
Word: fuzzl
(Half a rap song! Word verification is a fucking miracle!)
Didn't working papers series used to be printed and sold before the Internet? (I wouldn't know, I'm almost a digital native.) But they still didn't count as publications, no? (In the sense that one could sent a later version of the same paper to a journal.)
verification word: ocryness
Isn't the worry here that journals/volumes often require submissions not to have been published elsewhere? If the bound versions make it more likely that journals will consider drafts to have already been published, it could jeopardize one's ability to have one's papers appear in such places.
I'm pretty sure that legally speaking, when you put your paper on your own web page, it's published.
I doubt this will cause a problem when you submit the paper to a journal.
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