3.805 expensive journals? CD-ROMs? (72)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Thu, 30 Nov 89 21:32:52 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 805. Thursday, 30 Nov 1989.


(1) Date: 30 November 1989, 09:34:39 EDT (20 lines)
From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB
Subject: expensive journals and copyright

(2) Date: Thu, 30 Nov 89 17:29:24 MST (32 lines)
From: Sterling Bjorndahl <USERBJOR@UALTAMTS.BITNET>
Subject: CD-ROM question

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 30 November 1989, 09:34:39 EDT
From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB
Subject: expensive journals and copyright

I was in a high-level university committee meeting, for allocation of
large grants within my university, and a question came up that I would
like to pose to Humanist members at large. Because of the need to
expand knowledge of faculty and graduate students in Physics, that
department had requested funds to buy back issues of a journal in
microfilm. The journal, not of abnormal bulk, not profusely illustrated
or overly produced, cost $3200/year for subscriptions. The request from
Physics was for $14,000 for the back issues they thought necessary. The
economics of scale disturbed me, since I edit and publish a scholarly
journal that pays its own way on subscriptions of $15.00/year. Can
anyone in Humanist with a foot in the sciences speak to the issue of
such enormous profitability for a journal? Why does it happen, who gets
the profit, and how can it be prevented? (The committee's response,
jokingly, was "Why don't we pay any physicist who wants an issue carfare
to go get it Xeroxed, all the way to Cleveland if necessary?") Roy
Flannagan
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------40----
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 89 17:29:24 MST
From: Sterling Bjorndahl <USERBJOR@UALTAMTS.BITNET>
Subject: CD-ROM question

I would appreciate some help with some CD-ROM questions. Would
someone please either answer the questions for me, or direct me to an
appropriate printed or network source?

My questions have to do with the directory of a CD-ROM. I have been
given a routine that will read a random sector from a CD-ROM, but in
order to put that to good use I have to be able to parse the CD-ROM
directory. I have two problems: a) how do I locate the start of the
directory, and b) what data fields are in the directory records?

To illustrate the first problem, the directories of the TLG CD-ROM #C
and the PHI #1 are found starting at sector 16, but the directory of
PHI #2 is found starting at sector 14. How is a program supposed to
know where to start looking?

As for the second problem, I have been able to identify, strictly by
observation, the fields containing the name, the starting sector
number, and the length of each file. But there is a lot of other
information in there, and I can't tell what it is just by looking at
it. Any enlightenment would be much appreciated.

Please reply to me directly. I don't currently subscribe to HUMANIST
or other discussion groups, since I have to pay real money for the
time I use on this computer.

Sterling Bjorndahl
Camrose, Alberta
USERBJOR@UALTAMTS on NetNorth