Discovered via Nate

I was a bit surprised to see how many entries there were for #DoOO in the collaborative Opening Knowledge Practices bibliography. You could probably do worse than to start with the first two entries, A brief history parts 1&2 by Jess Reingold et al: https://t.co/CkhgaHgb0E

— Nate Angell (@xolotl) March 8, 2022

Though all too true, this is just a painful statement for me. The entirety of our modern world is contingent upon the creation of ideas, their improvement and evolution, and their spreading. In an academic world where attribution of ideas is paramount, why wouldn't one publish quickly and immediately on one's own site (or anywhere else they might for that matter keeping in mind that it's almost trivially easy to self-publish it on one's own website nearly instantaneously)?

Early areas of science were held back by the need to communicate by handwriting letters as the primary means of communication. Books eventually came, but the research involved and even the printing process could take decades. Now the primary means of science communication is via large (often corporate owned) journals, but even this process may take a year or more of research and then a year or more to publish and get the idea out. Why not write the ideas up and put them out on your own website and collect more immediate collaborators? Funding is already in such a sorry state that generally, even an idea alone, will not get the ball rolling.

I'm reminded of the gospel song "This little light of mine" whose popular lyrics include: "Hide it under a bushel? No! / I'm gonna let it shine" and "Don't let Satan blow it out, / I'm gonna let it shine"

I'm starting to worry that academia in conjunction with large corporate publishing interests are acting the role of Satan in the song which could easily be applied to ideas as well as to my little light.

Repackaging public domain texts and charging a steep markup too much above and beyond the cost of the paper is just highway robbery. Unless a publisher is adding some actual annotative or analytical value, they shouldn't be charging outrageous prices for textbooks of this nature.