<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 12 (filtered medium)">
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph
{mso-style-priority:34;
margin-top:0cm;
margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:0cm;
margin-left:36.0pt;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;}
@page Section1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
/* List Definitions */
@list l0
{mso-list-id:691104013;
mso-list-type:hybrid;
mso-list-template-ids:-2118119934 -1491149430 201916441 201916443 201916431 201916441 201916443 201916431 201916441 201916443;}
@list l0:level1
{mso-level-text:"\(%1\)";
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;}
ol
{margin-bottom:0cm;}
ul
{margin-bottom:0cm;}
-->
</style>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</head>
<body lang=EN-AU link=blue vlink=purple>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal>Dear Typologists, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Looking back over this very thought-provoking exchange, I
think I can reconstruct some of its more “heated” aspects to the
following discursive events:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span
style='mso-list:Ignore'>(1)<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span><![endif]>Bill Croft criticized a particular policy decision at
MDG which related to discounted pricing of MGL volumes, among others.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span
style='mso-list:Ignore'>(2)<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span><![endif]>I suggested that this was one facet of a larger problem
regarding the pricing of minority language description in general, and continued
to use the example of MGL because it illustrated the point well enough.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Some listmembers took this as implying that<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span
style='mso-list:Ignore'>(3)<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span><![endif]>MDG should be singled-out among academic publishers for
its prohibitive pricing of language description, perhaps further implying there
are at least some academic publishers who provide the same quality at more
affordable rates, and that MDG’s failure to do so was a matter of choice,
or greed, etc.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I don’t think that (3) need follow from (1) and (2),
but to the extent that my post served to bias the discussion in that direction,
I apologize to Uri, to Frans, and to others at or associated with MDG who,
indeed, quite obviously work hard to successfully bring out high-quality linguistic
research. I obviously don’t know what MGL’s profit margins are, and
it doesn’t surprise me to hear suggestions that MDG might not be making
much of a profit from this particular series.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But whether MDG is the worst or the best of the worst is not
the point I was trying to focus on. Whatever the reasons, the facts remain that
the pricing of MGL volumes – among, yes, very many other journals and
book series published in linguistics today, whether by MDG or by other
publishers – renders them unaffordable, and the research contained within
them inaccessible, to a great number of researchers, and that this problem is
particularly acute in regions of the world from which much of modern language
description originates. And I am, actually, surprised to hear suggestions here
and there that only a “handful” of people in such regions might
make use of language description, or that the use to which they might put language
description might or might not be valid or valuable in some sense. In my
admittedly limited experience, members of minority language communities are
often very, very keen to examine anything which has been written about them or
their languages, and local researchers – whether they are “community
members” or not – are in fact very frequently in need of materials relating
to languages of their region that can’t be accessed for economic reasons
(I, at least, seem to get emails requesting a .pdf of this or that book all the
time). It seems to me that making descriptive materials accessible to these
types of user should be a top priority. If for-profit publishing is in
principle incapable of doing this – which is one way of interpreting several
posts in this thread, at least – then participation in for-profit publishing
seems unethical, at least where minority language description is concerned,
presuming one has any real choice in the matter.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The problem, of course, is that we seem to lack acceptable alternatives.
Few of us are free to pick and choose among publishers on the basis of purely
economic or ethical considerations, and most of us exist in academic regimes in
which “output” is not recognized unless it has the blessing of a
publisher, “quality” is quantified in ways that do not invoke
accessibility, and both promotions and research funding are contingent on such “quality
output”. So, picking up on some earlier points made by Harald, Martin and
others, it does seem to me that we, as editors, as reviewers, as authors, as advisory
board members to funding agencies and (maybe) as university administrators,
need to try to steer academic publishing back into the universities – universities
being repositories of prestige, as well as capacity – and toward
open-access/print-on-demand models. And I repeat here my wish to continue to
hear suggestions for how this might be effectively accomplished, or to learn why
exactly it is either impractical or undesirable. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>All the best,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mark<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mark W. Post, PhD<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Anthropological Linguistics<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The Cairns Institute<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>James Cook University<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Smithfield, QLD 4878<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Australia<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Tel: +61-7-4042-1898<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Eml: mark.post@jcu.edu.au<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Web: http://jamescook.academia.edu/MarkWPost<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>