Short Takes

(Unpublished correspondence from our files)

Open Access on This Website?

The arguments pro and con are quite simple. On the one hand, does it make sense to sell the journal and at the same time make (parts of) it freely available? On the other hand, in principle the bigger audience we reach the better, and the more pleasing to our contributors.

I lean towards putting short topical articles on the site, partly as samplers, and partly because I do not believe that people read at length on screen, and making the website too long will make it wearisome.

Gordon Graham
to Editorial Board of LOGOS

Graham to van Krevelen February 5, 2008

As we discussed recently, the subject of rpm has been quiescent in Europe for a few years. I am wondering whether the battle between Amazon and the French government is making it current again? I attach the latest clipping from the British press.

The story could be that so long as books were sold purely through High Street booksellers, rpm was defensible. Internet bookselling is an obvious challenge, but so are supermarkets and book clubs.

It might be time for a brief reflection on today's situation in Europe, which has always been the home of rpm. Maybe what rpm needs is an epitaph?

Van Krevelen to Graham February 19, 2008

Thank you for having sent me the press clipping about Amazon's attack on the French law on RPM. I think that Jeff Bezos overestimates his power and that of his subscribing clients, because the Law Lang is very well anchored in the French legislation, and it is EU-proof. I do not think that Sarkozy would like to suspend it. Bezos' arguments that France would be the only country in which postage for books cannot be included legally in the selling price is false. The same goes for The Netherlands and its law on fixed book prices. Amazon adds postage to most of its deliveries, so why not in France? Any court will tell him that his arguments are rather weak. So, I am not convinced that this will be the Requiem for the fixed book prices in France.

Arboleda to Graham February 29, 2008

The subscription price of $108 for the printed version and $140 for the combined subscription is somewhat steep for some developing countries. (I am providing a gift printed subscription to Karina Bolasco of Anvil Publishing in the Philippines.) If there could be a developing country online only subscription at about $32 (the difference between the two) LOGOS might attract more subscribers from such countries.

Graham to Arboleda March 18, 2008

Going online brings us closer to a solution to surmounting the barrier of low purchasing power. In the foreseeable future, we might be able to give institutions in developing countries open access to our archive. Francis Pinter is working on a project which will have pointers in this direction.

Regarding individuals in developing countries, I think you yourself have devised the ideal solution. We have tried direct offers at discounted prices to individuals, without success. I would like to extend your idea by inviting all our Trustees, Editorial Board and indeed all subscribers to make gift subscriptions (as you have done to Karina Bolasco), to which we would give discounts of say 75%, which would bring the cost close to what you envisage. If you would like to continue your generosity to Karina, just ask her to send the renewal notice to you, and with your blessing, I shall endorse it for the 75% discount.

Van Krevelen to Graham, March 19, 2008

The LOGOS site is, I think, mainly a form of promotion of the journal and its philosophy. I would say that such a promotion can best be made by teasing the screen readers with free abstracts of the articles, but not by giving away the full text.

Graham to van Krevelen and Day, April 14, 2008

In our recent roundtable correspondence about the website, you both felt we should look at the idea of putting abstracts onto the web.

I have always been against the use of abstracts in LOGOS, although they are general practice in academic journals. I feel that too often they are used as a quick read and an excuse not to read the full text.

The LOGOS editorial policy has been rather to entice the reader into the full text through the title of the article and the impact of the opening paragraphs. These, along with the biographical note on the author, are intended to entice readers to read articles not directly in their fields, which is part of our editorial mission. Abstracts are the enemies of surprise and serendipity, and readers who read the abstracts and flick on can miss a lot of good writing.

Day to Graham, April 24, 2008

I love the phrase: "Abstracts are the enemies of surprise and serendipity". I must remember that. I agree with you about the use of the abstract as a substitute for actually reading the article. What one wants is the equivalent of a good book blurb: something that entices one to read on rather than being sufficient in itself - a "teaser" as you describe it. Thinking more about this, the other "problem" is that the ideal LOGOS article is not susceptible to straightforward abstracting. Actually that is less a problem than an advantage: the website can carry a brief description, but it will not tell the reader enough to substitute for reading the article itself.

From Gordon Graham's Media File LOGOS 19/1:

An 1834 edition of Burns's works is one of the four thousand in my house. When I took it off the shelf to read some of his poems to my family before we settled down to our haggis dinner on January 25th, a previously unnoticed handwritten note fluttered to the carpet. It was written by a previous, no doubt the original, owner, Ms Joan Strong, of 4006 Baltimore Avenue, Philadelphia. Addressed to no one in particular, it records what a pastor, the Rev J.H. Enders, had written about Burns in The Christian Intelligencer of June 17, 1891. In a note she adds that an ivy tree on the front of her house grew from a sprig cut from Robert Burns's gravestone in Scotland. I shall be grateful if any Philadelphia reader of LOGOS checks whether the house - and the ivy - are still there. Perhaps 4006 Baltimore Avenue is on the market, going cheap because it's full of books. Bless you, Ms Strong. It's an honour to have your book and your letter. I wonder whether you sold the book or was it found among your effects and purchased as a job lot by an antiquarian bookseller. It hadn't travelled very far in 1891, since it is an American edition, published (pirated) in Philadelphia in 1834 "from the last London edition of 1825".

From Robert Bonn of New York:

Pat and I spend a wonderful hour tracking down where Joan Strong lived in Philadelphia in 1891 ... 4006 Baltimore Avenue ... is in an area into which the University of Pennsylvania has encroached; one might call it "seedy" though there are still many signs of life in it. In the 19th century the avenue was marked by rows of stately mansions and these still stand today on the opposite, on-numbered side of the 4000 block of Baltimore Avenue. However, the even side of the avenue has seen enormous "redevelopment" and, so far as I could figure out, there is no 4006 Baltimore Avenue. Rather charmingly there is a 4004 number on a stone gate that seems to be used as a postal address for a house that fronts on a side street. The only other houses on the block are 4040A and 4040B, two small apartment buildings. Nor did I find evidence of an "ivy" tree.