[time-nuts] Paywall rant

Dr. David Kirkby david.kirkby at onetel.net
Tue Jun 5 21:55:08 UTC 2012


On 06/ 5/12 09:23 PM, Jerry Mulchin wrote:
> I joined IEEE for a while a few years ago with the hopes of being able to
> access the libraries I wanted most. What a shock to find out that I had to
> pay additional monies to get access to those files. So I quit the IEEE
> and now I keep getting Emails from them asking me to join again at a
> reduced rate of course. Now I can't get rid of their constant bugging me
> to re-join again. It seems once you get on their Mailing List you can't
> get off. Argh!!!
>
> Jerry

Yes, I still get the IEEE emails, though i have not personally been a IEEE 
member for about 10 years. I was only a member when my employer (Marconi) paid 
for it.

The problem is that a lot of the IEEE journal articles one finds useful, are not 
in the journal one has subscribed to. Most antenna papers are in the IEEE 
Antennas and Propagation journals, but sometimes interesting papers crop up in 
the most unexpected places. So unless you have a university subscription, its 
not really practical to find all the papers you want that the IEEE has published.

I am a member of the IET, which means I keep the C.Eng status, which is worth 
far more to me than any library access. The IET don't publish much of interest 
to me.

Dave



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