Mouton "discounts" for ALT members

[Alexander Bochkov]

Dr. Croft,

I know that this is not a permanent solution but is your library currently
subscribed to de Gruyter's Reference Global (full access available to
institutions only)? http://www.reference-global.com/ Mouton grammars are
available there. It's not clear from the website what the current
subscription fee is.

Incidentally, I am already saving up money to buy your forthcoming
book, *Verbs:
Aspect and Causal Structure*, at OUP. OUP offers it at $160.00 (I know it's
not your fault) whereas on Amazon it is slightly cheaper.

On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 7:27 AM, Bill Croft <wcroft at unm.edu> wrote:

> I see that my initial message has prompted a number of responses on
> various topics that were connected to that message, but not directly
> addressing the issue that I originally raised. That issue was that Mouton
> is no longer offering a discount to INDIVIDUALS that put their grammars in
> reach, at least for employed academics at universities in developed
> countries. My point remains that Mouton's new policy is putting their books
> out of reach of individuals, and that Mouton will actually lose more money
> (by not selling those volumes at all) than it would lose if it kept the 50%
> discount (in which case they would at least earn money from individual
> ALT/SSILA members who bought the books - the numbers of which are so small
> it's not like they would have to do a money-losing print run to sell copies
> to individuals).
>
> I also raised the issue that the high list price of Mouton grammars means
> that many universities cannot afford to buy them either. For a small, poor
> regional university like the University of New Mexico, it is difficult to
> justify spending a large part of the linguistics library budget on a
> grammar of a Papuan or an African language. So I am willing to buy such a
> grammar for myself - if I can afford to. But I no longer can, from Mouton
> at any rate.
>
> This is not to deny that the issues subsequently raised - how for-profit
> publishers function as the gatekeepers for the dissemination of scholarly
> knowledge, accessibility of scholarly research in poorer countries and to
> the native speaker communities, print vs electronic resources, and so on -
> are important ones. Mouton's former policy for ALT/SSILA members made a
> small contribution in addressing some of these problems, and was quite
> laudable. Their new policy is a step backwards that is deplorable in my
> opinion.
>
> Best wishes,
> Bill
>



-- 
Alexander Bochkov
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