Academic Papers Via iTunes

Sometimes technologies can be use for purposes the inventors didn’t really intend. I’m sure that when the designers of the iTunes music store set the thing up, they didn’t expect that you’d be able to use it to download esoteric papers in philosophical logic. But you can.

Greg Restall has managed to make his academic papers available for download via iTunes. As Greg explains, it is a relatively simple process and iTunes is already enabled to handle pdf files.

Whilst this is a cool way for individuals to make it easier to access their work, it wouldbe more interesting if journals rethink their distribution. Greg is already working on this with the Austaliasian Journal of Logic.

A number of journals in theology are quite small and often difficult to find if one does not have access to a major library. Subscription could break down access barriers for those outside the academy. Current models, like Ingenta, fail simply because the cost to buy one-off articles is far to high (often well past the cost of a book).

[tags] iTunes, Journal, Academic [/tags]