Re: LCS benefits, was Re: [CONLANG] Conlang hosting

On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Amanda Babcock Furrow
<langs@...> wrote:
>  The benefit I would be most excited to see from the LCS, but which would
>  require that it have a thriving budget, would be... JSTOR access!
...
> $1500 upfront plus $500 a year for their "Arts & Sciences Complement", a bundle of
> currently 143 titles including the
>  above-mentioned journals.
>
>  A benefit like this, something that I can only obtain as a member of a
>  group, would truly make LCS membership worthwhile to me.
That would, indeed, be neat. I share the frustration with the current
state of academic publishing being nearly-unreachable to individuals.

This *could* happen once we have ongoing memberships, but it'll depend
a great deal on how many members we have, and how many of them care
enough about this. Think of it simply as distributed cost. Is it
worth, say, $5 to 300 people? $10 to 150 people? $20 to 75 people?

As Paul pointed out, if you have institutional affiliation even by
proxy - say, a friend still there or an alumni membership - you can
get access. And there are some PDFs available online; sometimes
directly from the authors. (This is how I do it, since graduating
UCB.)

For comparison, the total budget for LCC2 was approx $3k. LCC1 was approx $2k.


Please don't take this as me saying we can't or even that we're in a
place to realistically be able to consider it yet. That'll come after
we get the IRS blessing and see what our membership is like, so we can
consider this in light of a real budget. (We'll open for memberships
right after we get that tax exemption.)

I just would like to know that it's important enough to enough people,
compared to the other things that we could do if we had the time and
money - like webhosting, scholarships, bigger conferences, contests,
publishing, etc. etc. Not to mention saving up some money in the bank
in case we make a loss on a conference or the like. It's a matter of
what's the best overall, and prioritizing those things which might be
simply impossible except through the LCS because nobody else cares
enough to do it.

I'd like to make sure that we can offer valuable member benefits, and
indeed this ability to do things in groups that we can't easily do
individually is one of the main reasons the LCS was started. It's a
balancing act, though, in figuring what will do that best - and
ensuring also our continued survival so that we can keep doing so for
years to come.

FWIW, we *do* consider all suggestions seriously, and if you would
like to talk to us directly you can do so; the contact info is at
<http://conlangs.berkeley.edu/lcs.php>. But here is fine too, so long
as the others on the list don't mind.

For that matter, if you are interested enough, we can always use more
help in making these desires a reality. Often enough, it simply is a
matter of having one person who cares enough to get it off the ground.

Sincerely,
- Sai
(feeling in a bit of a "that'd be awesome but can we afford to do it" mode)

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