[A2k] Access to Scientific Books in Brazil

[Pablo Ortellado]

(Sorry for cross postings)

Dear friends,
Those of you who can read Spanish (or Portuguese) might find some
interest in a report we have just released measuring public subsidy and
evaluating the free access to scientific books in Brazil. Our report
identifies public subsidies in 3 moments in the production of the
scientific book in Brazil: in the funding of scientific research, in
industrial production (by means of tax exemption to publishing houses)
and directly through public university presses. The tax exemption alone
costs annually US$ 560 million to the Brazilian public. We also studied
the institutional status of national authors of 2,000 books adopted in
several graduate courses and found that in scientific areas 86% of them
work full time in public institutions. We also found out that public
university presses produce about 10% of the books adopted. Despite this
high public subsidy to scientific books, Brazilian copyright law
includes very confuse provisions for public access (through exceptions
and limitations) and Brazilian public institutions have had very
incongruent policies to guarantee public access to books.

The report can be downloaded here:

Spanish:
https://www.gpopai.usp.br/wiki/images/1/1b/Libro_tec_cienti_castellano.pdf

Portuguese:
https://www.gpopai.usp.br/wiki/images/8/8f/Relatorio.pdf