Re:This is good, but I do feel a bit cheated. (Score 2, Interesting)

Building institutional repositories isn't exactly going to make a profit for the universities, but they do see IRs as a way of saving money in the long run. According to a recent SPARC white paper (the most comprehensive discussion on the topic so far http://www.arl.org/sparc/home/index.asp?page=0), universities are tired of paying exorbitant subscription rates for leading journals, esp. in the sciences, yet the journals are so important in the system of assessing academic merit, no university can afford to do without them. IRs provide an alternative venue for academic publishing that breaks the monopoly of the journals, and, once the infrastructure is working smoothly, saves on journal subscriptions. It remains to be seen whether or not universities can adequately perform the gatekeeping and review functions of journals, or whether academics would be willing to publish in an IR instead of Nature or The Lancet (although changes in copyright rules may allow them to do both). Also, Mr. Coward's comment about literary critics undermines itself. If "reading is fundamental," then interpreting texts, i.e., literary criticism, must also be fundamental.