tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post114858953000031908..comments2024-03-28T18:17:00.135-05:00Comments on Computational Complexity: Talking to PublishersLance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1148990163142116812006-05-30T06:56:00.000-05:002006-05-30T06:56:00.000-05:00I don't get this... where do publishers get off no...I don't get this... where do publishers get off not providing free online access to all content? Why has the TCS community been tolerating this restriction of public access to knowledge? As for charging for print copies, that's fine, I guess, as long as it's non-profit, but I see no reason for publishing houses to line their pockets at the public's expense.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1148905131151945762006-05-29T07:18:00.000-05:002006-05-29T07:18:00.000-05:00"New York is more "international" than Amsterdam, ..."New York is more "international" than Amsterdam, in the same way that London and Paris are more "international" than Amsterdam: They're better, and betterness cuts across borders and nationalities."<BR/><BR/>Sure, NY beats Amsterdam in some aspects, but for the purpose of keeping in touch with authors, editors and readers worldwide? Any place with decent mail services will do.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1148695813052714632006-05-26T21:10:00.000-05:002006-05-26T21:10:00.000-05:00Publishers provide our community with several diff...Publishers provide our community with several different types of products: <BR/><BR/>* Conference proceedings <BR/><BR/>* Journals<BR/><BR/>* Monographs<BR/><BR/>* Textbooks<BR/><BR/>ACM, IEEE and other societies do a great job for the first two and these days make plenty of money from the online access. Springer LNCS seems also to have found a good niche for conference proceedings. However, I find LNCS volumes much less accessible than other proceedings. Their access online through SpringerLink is sufficiently expensive that our library refuses to pay for it and only subscribes to the hard-copy LNCS conference proceedings through a multi-university consortium. Part of this is the volume of proceedings that LNCS publishes, which ranges from longstanding conferences like ICALP and CRYPTO to some very marginal fare. <BR/><BR/>In journals, societies these days seem to have a clear edge over the for-profit publishers both in price and quality. I've said my piece before on this but Elsevier has a long way to go to become competitive with ACM, SIAM, and IEEE. <BR/><BR/>For monographs the societies seem to be well behind publishers like Cambridge and Springer. Cambridge has had an excellent ratio of quality to price for many years. Although some of the older titles of Springer are quite expensive, books produced more recently with more author involvement in production seem to be hitting fairly good price points for our community. SIAM used to produce good volumes in the CBMS series but these seem to have stalled.<BR/><BR/>In textbooks there are many more players but there are also some outrageous actors. Rosen's "Discrete Mathematics" text from McGraw-Hill has been one of the most extreme for 'textbook churn'. The 5th edition sells for an amazing $132 on Amazon and the book is going into its 6th edition this summer, the sole purpose of which seems to be to eliminate the re-sale market. Although there was some re-organization in the 5th edition there is little content that has changed in the 16 years since it first came out. (Some glitches in the 1st edition still have not been fixed.) I am teaching the course in the fall and am trying to find a good source of used editions. This kind of pricing seems every bit as predatory as the for-profit journal market does.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1148672484591754392006-05-26T14:41:00.000-05:002006-05-26T14:41:00.000-05:00New York is more "international" than Amsterdam, i...New York is more "international" than Amsterdam, in the same way that London and Paris are more "international" than Amsterdam: They're better, and betterness cuts across borders and nationalities.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1148660283089022952006-05-26T11:18:00.000-05:002006-05-26T11:18:00.000-05:00It was interesting that the copy of JCSS that was ...It was interesting that the copy of JCSS that was available was the special issue from FOCS 2003 -- the last of the STOC/FOCS special issues in JCSS.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1148633089262887582006-05-26T03:44:00.000-05:002006-05-26T03:44:00.000-05:00So Elsevier strives to appease America by offendin...So Elsevier strives to appease America by offending Europe???Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1148599797636815182006-05-25T18:29:00.001-05:002006-05-25T18:29:00.001-05:00The Cauchy Schwarz Master Class totally rocks. Wa...The Cauchy Schwarz Master Class totally rocks. Way harder than Lordi, even.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1148599769074350782006-05-25T18:29:00.000-05:002006-05-25T18:29:00.000-05:00Why is New York more international than Amsterdam?...Why is New York more international than Amsterdam???Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1148599507872489652006-05-25T18:25:00.000-05:002006-05-25T18:25:00.000-05:00At this stage it will take more than a couple of n...At this stage it will take more than a couple of nuggets to win back the good will of the community. Perhaps an announcement like Libya's announcement of making peace with the West, and followed with some quick actions to back it up...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com