Collective Waves of Sleep in Gulls

[Graham Saunders]

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[Peter Frost]

Oh dear! I tried...

Peter

[Ian Southey]

Peter

Thanks for trying. I miss access to journals badly too. Now that most universities are recieving and disseminating them electronically the maintenance on my education is slipping badly. I also worry about the gulf between amateur and professional ornithologists. How can we know what's going on in the world? Even the DOC people are often publishing internationally rather than locally so by and large I have no idea of what they are up to.

There used to be libraries so people could read the books they couldn't afford to buy for entertainment and self improvement. I wandered into the Auckland University library some time ago and asked how much it would cost to access the journals. After hearing the pitch I found I could pay money and take books out but that there was no way of seeing any content in any of the journals.

If somebody came up with an affordable online library I would subscribe. Individuals may only be able to make a small contribution but it would increase both their audience and their revenues from where they are now.

And maybe Phil would become less of a criminal too.

Ian

[Graham Saunders]

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[Graham Saunders]

Oh dear! I tried...

Your argument is based on non sequitor. Reasoning that an effective way to communicate science to the public is through their access to articles in the primary scientific journals is fatally flawed.

[Graham Saunders]

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[Jan]

Why do so few academic ornithologists contribute etc.etc.?

I can hazard a few good guesses, Graham DEAR.

[Graham Saunders]

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[Graham Saunders]

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[Peter Frost]

...For those who are interested, there is a wide range of peer-reviewed open-access journals, including: the Public Library of Science journals (http://www.plos.org/); BioMed Central — 212 peer-reviewed open access journals across many scientific fields, mostly in the medical sciences but including BMC Biology, BMC Ecology, BMC Evolutionary Biology, Carbon Balance and Management, and Frontiers in Zoology (see http://www.biomedcentral.com/browse/journals/); Marine Ornithology (http://www.marineornithology.org/); Avian Ecology and Conservation (http://www.ace-eco.org/); Ecology and Society (http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/), among many others. You can also get free access to past content from a number of ornithological journals through SORA, the Searchable Ornithological Research Archive (http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/). This includes Auk (currently available up to 2001), Condor (2000), International Wader Studies (2002), Journal of Field Ornithology (1999), Journal of Raptor Research (2005), Ornithological Monographs (2005), Wader Studies Group Bulletin (2004) and Wilson Bulletin (1999). As far as I know, these are all peer-reviewed journals...

Peter